Piece it All Together
by stellarstellajay
Summary: "I don't, I don't understand?" El says quietly, finally looking Hop in the eye. "I talk to you." she finishes. "Yeah, yeah, kid. I know you do. And I'm glad you do. I'm glad you trust me enough to tell me some of what happened. But I'm not able to help you. Not really." "Is there something wrong with me?" She asks, looking back down at the ground. or: El goes to therapy
1. Chapter 1

Jim Hopper can understand a lot of shit, a lot more than most people would a) give him credit for and b) a hell of a lot more than what most people would understand. He understands that there's evil out there, real-life-true-blue evil. It's out there and most of the world has no idea.

He understands that his daughter and her friends have seen it and fought it and that those friends of hers are a hell of a lot more brave than the majority of adults that he knows and comes into contact with on a regular basis. He understands that those friends of his daughter would lay their lives on the line (and have for her) and that she would and has done the same for them. They have the same bond that he has with the boys he fought with back in Vietnam. A kind of bond that's forged through trauma, a bond that is unbreakable. Only they all managed to survive.

He understands that said daughter has powers and abilities that few people would be able to even wrap their head around, let alone accept. He also understands that those powers and abilities that she has sure have taken a toll on her. He understands that the aforementioned evils of the world are a part of the reason that she has the powers and abilities and it's a part of the reason she has such a hard time.

He understands why she has nightmares. Why sometimes she cries and cries and cries and why sometimes she just can't stop crying. He understands why she flinches when he raises his voice or when he moves too suddenly. He understands why she hates closed doors and loud sounds and dark corners. He understands why she shakes and stares off into space.

What Jim Hopper cannot wrap his head around though, what he cannot understand, is how to help her. And God does he want to help her. He wants to help her so bad it hurts sometimes. It keeps him up at night. Makes him chew on his nails and smoke too many cigarettes. He tries and tries and tries and no matter what he does or what he says, he can't help her get better.

He tries and her friends that she has all try and try and try to help her. But nothing any of them say or do can help her completely. That Mike Wheeler is the only one who can really seem to get through to her, but even then that's only partly. That's only temporary. It's only a bandage on the bullet hole that is her trauma.

Because Hop also understands that once she comes home or once her friends leave for the night, once Mike has kissed her cheek and squeezed her hand one last time for the night, that El is going to walk somberly to her room (because she knows what's coming just as much as Hop does, knows what is coming is as inevitable as the tide or the rotation of the earth or the sunrise of the coming morning) and that she is going to toss and turn and talk in her sleep and scream and cry. And eventually, El will either wake up and go to Hop or Hop will wake up and go to El and he'll tell her that everything is okay. That it's all over. That all the Bad Men are gone and she's safe and her friends are safe and she'll stay safe and her friends will stay safe if it's the very last thing Hop ever does. And she'll cry and he'll wipe her tears and then eventually they'll both fall asleep.

Hopper knows that they both can't keep living like this. El deserves to be able to be as happy and carefree as the other kids her age. She deserves the childhood that she was robbed of. And Hop'll be damned if he doesn't do everything in his power to give her at least part of it back.

So he bought them a house, still not in town, but no longer in the middle of the woods. He lets her friends come and go as they please and he lets her go to their houses. She still can't go out, out with them. But he's been working on that. Working on a cover story for why all the sudden he's the single guardian of a thirteen year old girl. He also doesn't want the rumor mill to run its course on El. Not while she's still healing. Not before she can even begin healing. He knows that it's going to happen eventually, but he just wants to put it off for as long as possible, for her sake.

So that's why he reaches out to Dr. Owens. Because she deserves a shot at normalcy more than anyone else he knows. He doesn't know who else he could go to, or if there's anyone else that he'd be able to go to. He tells Doc about the nightmares and the screaming and crying and shaking and the silence so loud it swallows them both whole.

Hop has tried to talk to her about everything that's happened. But El doesn't always have the right words, and when she does, when she finally figures out a way to explain some of the things that are always floating around in her brain, he doesn't have the right words to speak back to her. The words that will make her feel better. The words that would make her feel normal. The words that will lift some of the weight off of her small shoulders. But he knows that she's been through some shit so that's why he reaches out the Doc. He knows that El is about as far from normal than just about anybody, but that doesn't mean that she doesn't deserve at least the chance to feel like she can be just another kid.

Ownes' makes some calls and finds someone who is "in the know" about everything that has happened in Hawkins so that El doesn't have to lie when and if she talks to him.

That's how he finds himself standing in the doorway of his living room watching Will, Dustin, Lucas, Max, Mike, and El sitting in a circle on the floor playing some sort of card game and talking in lazy circles. He's trying to best figure out a way to approach the topic of therapy, more specifically, taking El to go see a therapist. He sees Mike is unusually quiet, his face is subtly hinting as concern as he glances over at El. She has a blank look on her face, eyes dark and unfocused. It's a look that Hop has been seeing more and more of recently. It hurts him every time.

He clears his throat and five pairs of eyes look up at him.

"Is everything okay?" Mike asks, sounding wary.

"Oh yeah, uh, everything is fine. I just wanted to um, talk. To El."

She looks over at his general direction at the mention of her name, but fails to make eye contact. That's another thing that has been happening more and more.

"Do you want us to leave?" Max asks with an eyebrow raised.

"Oh no, no. It's fine. Well, if she wants you to leave then sure. I not then you can stay. But I uh, I don't mind talking about this in front of you all. It might actually be better if I do."

The kids set down their cards and turn their full attention to Hopper. Hopper sees Mike place his hand on top of El's and give it a squeeze, she looks down at it, and then back to Hop's general direction.

He takes a deep breath, all of the words that had been swirling around in his head about this suddenly leaving him. He takes another deep breath and then moves to sit on the couch so they don't all have to look up at him.

"So, El. I know that you've been having a hard time, um, dealing with everything. Like, your, uh- your feelings. About what happened in the lab. And about what, what um, what happened, everything that happened after. And I want you to be happy. We all do."

Hop sees that kids nodding in agreement so he takes another deep breath and keeps on going.

"I want you to be happy. And I think for you to be happy you're going to have to work through everything that happened. So I talked to Dr. Owens and he found someone you would be able to talk to about all of this. About everything that happened."

Hopper has no idea why he's feeling so nervous about all of this. He's fought monsters from another dimension, he's been to another dimension for Christ's sake, he should be able to have the balls to tell his daughter that he wants to send her to a shrink.

"I don't, I don't understand?" El says quietly, finally looking Hop in the eye. "I talk to you." she finishes.

"Yeah, yeah, kid. I know you do. And I'm glad you do. I'm glad you trust me enough to tell me some of what happened. But I'm not able to help you. Not really."

"Is there something wrong with me?" She asks, looking back down at the ground.

"What? No! No, no, there's uh, there's nothing wrong with you. We all need help sometimes. And sometimes, we have to go to other people for help, and sometimes, some people are better at helping with different things."

Everyone is silent for a beat before Max says "Are you talking about taking El to therapy?"

"What is 'therapy'?" El asks before Hop can answer Max.

"Therapy is where you go and talk to someone about your feelings." Mike says. "Like, if you're feeling sad or angry or upset. They help you feel better. I've been before."

That throws Hopper for a loop.

"When?" He asks.

"When El was gone." Mike says, shrugging his shoulders. "My parents sent me because I was 'acting out' and they didn't know why. I couldn't talk about El or any of the stuff that I'd seen. So really I just talked about my parents, well, my dad mainly. It didn't suck. And it kinda made me feel better. About my dad at least. Well it didn't make me like him anymore. But it helped with how I felt, just kinda, in general about my dad."

"And I've been, too." Will says, matter of factly. "Well, I talked about how I felt. About the Upside Down and stuff with Dr. Ownes. It made me feel better about it. He didn't treat me like a broken little kid about it. And I talked about my dad, too. And Troy and James and how they bullied me and some other stuff..." he finishes, trailing off.

"I had to go a couple of times." Max says. "When my parents were getting divorced. My mom made me go. She thought it would help 'ease me through it' and it did, kinda."

El looks at all of her friends as they speak and then turns to Hopper. "You want me to go to therapy?" she asks.

"Well, I think it would be good for you. I'm not going to make you go if you don't want to. But I think it might help. Just to get it all your feelings out in the open. And you can talk about whatever you want and you don't have to talk about things that you don't want to talk about. It's all up to you. You talk about what you want to talk about." Hopper responds.

He sees El look down again and he feels the nervousness raise its head again. What if she says no? What if she doesn't want to go? How will he be able to help her be able to function like a normal kid if she doesn't want to get help?

"And I can go with you, if you want. Nancy went with me a few times in the beginning and it helped me talk to the therapist." Mike says, somewhat excitedly, "I mean, if that's okay with you." he says, turning to look at Hop.

"Yeah, yeah, that's fine. If El wants you there, you can be there."

"And I'll go too, if you want." Will offers.

"Me, too." Says Max.

"If you want me there, I'll go, too." Dustin says, smiling at El.

"Yeah, same for me." Lucas tells her.

And although Hopper hates that he has to even consider taking El to see someone else who may do nothing more than pick and prod at her brain more than it has already been picked and prodded at, it warms his heart to know that she has such great friends, ones who would be and are willing to fight this battle with her.

"You can all go if she wants you to."

El looks up at Hopper, eyes wide and uncertain. "This will, this will help me?"

"I can't say for certain, kid. But it may. And I think it's worth a shot. If it means you'll sleep better at night." Hopper says while thinking that if El were to sleep better at night, he would too. He can't remember the last time he had a decent night's sleep.

She turns to look at her friends, "You all would want to go with me?"

They all say "Yes." and "Yeah." and Mike says "Of course." while reaching down to squeeze her hand again.

"I will try it." She says, looking and sounding uncertain.

"I think it will help a lot. And if it doesn't, then you don't have to go anymore. But please, please just give it a chance." Hopper says.

El nods her head.

"Good. Alright. Good." He says while standing up and smiling down at her.

El nods her head again and looks down.

"It's getting kind of late. Do you all have rides home? Do I need to drop anyone off?" Hopper asks, trying to change the subject.

The kids all start talking over one another talking about how they're going to get home and from what he can discern, they all have a way home.

"Okay, okay. Good. I'll let you all get back to it." He says, making his way out of the living room. The kids pick right back up where they left off and starting talking about whatever it was they were talking about before. Hop finds himself feeling thankful for them again, for not pushing the whole therapy thing with El. Before he leaves the room he looks over his shoulder and sees Mike whispering something into her ear, something that makes a small smile grace her lips.

Hop smiles one more time, this time to himself, and then saunters off to prepare for the inevitable.


	2. Chapter 2

Mike is worried about El.

Well, to be fair, the entire Party is worried about El and Mike is also sorta kinda always worried about El. Like, making sure that she's safe and comfortable and feels like she's loved and stuff. But he's worried about her in a different way this time.

He's worried about her because she seems sad now.

Well, she was sad when he first met her. And he understood it. And her sadness made him sad, too. Because El was and is good, so good and she deserves to be happy and he wants to make her happy because she deserves all of the good things in the world and being happy is one of the best things in the world.

The Party hadn't really acknowledged her sadness, it made sense. El had and has and will probably continue to go through a lot of shit. But that doesn't mean that she has to do it alone. And that's what Mike and the rest of the Party are there to do. To protect her and each other and to make sure that no one ever has to go through anything terrible and scary ever, ever again. But no one has really talked about it. They were all waiting for El to say something. No one really wants to push her (or anyone else in the Party, for that matter,) into sharing something that she wasn't ready to share just yet.

But this time is different. She gets quiet a lot. Well, she's always been really quiet, but sometimes she'll go the entire day without talking. And sometimes she cries and nothing Mike says or does can help her stop. He just has to hold her hand or hold her and hope that whatever it is that is making her so sad, leaves her mind and that she can find peace, even if it is only for just a moment.

And sometimes she just stares off into space and when he finally manages to get El to snap out of it, she seems lost, like she's making her way out of fog or something. And then sometimes she shakes even though she's not cold. And he knows that she has nightmares. Lots and lots of nightmares. To the point where Mike doesn't know if she has regular dreams at all. El doesn't tell Mike what her dreams are about, but he knows that they're bad. Really, really bad. And it seems like dark circles and red eyes have taken up a permanent residence on El's face.

So that's why Mike is really, like really glad when Chief suggests El goes to therapy. Mike knows that she's got a lot of stuff floating around in her head. And that she's been in the scariest and most awful situations that a person could go through, and when all of the stuff happened, and after El disappeared, Mike had nightmares for months. He still does sometimes. And it still makes him sad sometimes. So he knows it has to be so much worse for El.

And Mike really, really loves El, even if he hasn't told her or anyone else that fact yet. He's sure she knows. And he knows that she knows that he wants her to be happy. And that's why he's so eager to offer to go with her to see the doctor. And that's why he's happy and relieved when the rest of the Party offers to go with her, too.

Mike just wishes that he could help her more. Like all of the times El was able to help him, to save him. And Mike knows that the whole 'guy meets a damaged girl and fixes her with his love' thing is stupid and whatnot, and besides, Mike doesn't think that there's anything about El that needs to be fixed. He just wants her to not be so sad all the time. And he, selfishly, wants to be a part of what makes her feel better, in any capacity.

Mike remembers what it's like to be sad and angry all the time. He was sad and angry and hurt and scared for three-hundred-fifty-three days. And then even some after that. But those three-hundred-fifty-one days of all those bad emotions happened after one week of knowing what was really out there, he would never ever be able to imagine what it would feel like after knowing about it and living with it and blaming yourself about it and feeling guilty about it for twelve years.

El has told him a little bit about what the Bad Men did to her and what they made her do. Every time it made Mike's blood boil. It made him so angry to know that there were people out there who were so terrible and awful to another person, let alone someone who was as kind and sweet and smart and funny and caring as El. And Mike knows that it's hard for El to talk about what happened. For her to speak those awful things out into the universe. Mike knows what it's like to not want to talk. He didn't talk about the most important moments of his life for a year, like when El was gone and everyone thought she wasn't coming back or that she was dead. Because Mike knew that the moment he said the words out loud, the moment that he spoke them into existence, that they would be real. And he wasn't ready to let El go. He wasn't ready to give up the hope that she was still out there. Listening. He's very glad that he never gave up hope on her because she never gave up on him. Period. So now Mike is going to do everything that he can to help her because he's not going to give up on her. He never has and he never will.

About a week after El agrees to go to therapy, Mike finds himself sitting in the parking lot of a medical office with El and Hop. The rest of the Party had offered to go with her, but El had said that she just wanted Mike and Hop for the first time. And even though Mike knows that this isn't for him, he's still nervous. Which makes him wonder about how nervous El must be feeling. She hasn't said anything the entire car ride over there, so he can tell that she is nervous, but he has no idea what kind of thoughts are racing around in her head. He reaches down to squeeze her hand, just like Nancy did the first time that Mike had to go to therapy.

"Kid?" Hop asks from the front seat.

She stops looking out the window and up to the rearview mirror where Mike can see that he's watching her.

Hopper looks nervous, too. That unnerves Mike a little bit. He isn't used to seeing the Chief show a lot of emotions, especially nervousness.

Mike gives her hand another reassuring squeeze. Well, it's reassuring for Mike at least. His mom used to do it and it always made him feel better. And Nancy used to do it, too, when he was little.

"Are you ready?" Hop asks.

El takes a deep breath and breaks eye contact with Hop.

"You can do this." Mike whispers to her, still holding on to her hand.

She looks back out the window, face clouded, deep in thought. She looks back up at Hop in the mirror and takes another breath.

"I can do it. I'm ready." She says, even though she doesn't sound like she's all too sure.

"Damn right you can, kid." Hop says while grabbing his hat and going to open the door.

Mike scurries out the car and half runs over to El's side of the car so he can get her door for her. He opens it and El steps out. Mike smiles at her. She offers a small smile back.

"Ready." She says, sounding a little more certain of herself this time, and starts heading towards the front door.


	3. Chapter 3

El is nervous.

Well, she's more than nervous. She's terrified. She's terrified at the thought of having to tell someone else what had happened to her. She's terrified at the idea of yet another person thinking that she's a freak. El doesn't want to be a freak. El wants to be normal. El wants to be like Mike or like Max. They're normal. El is not normal. And she's terrified and scared and petrified and afraid and all the other words that Hop taught her that mean 'scared.'

El tries to remember the last time she didn't feel scared.

The day after she met Mike and spent the night in his basement. He treated her like she wasn't an experiment. Like she wasn't something to be poked and prodded and touched all the time. He didn't treat her like a weapon or a piece of equipment. He treated her like a person. He was the first person to treat her like El instead of Eleven. She also felt love for the first time in her whole entire life. Only, back then, she didn't know what it was.

Then when she saw Mike for the first time after three-hundred-fifty-three days. She felt happy.

Then there was the Snow Ball, where she felt safe for the first time in a very, very long time. And loved. El felt loved. That's when El realized what love feels like. When she finally had a name to attach to the emotion. To the feeling.

But after that, El started stopped thinking about the immediate danger, because after she closed the gate and she got a birth certificate, for the first time in her entire life, there wasn't any immediate danger. So she started thinking about the past.

El doesn't like thinking about her past. It hurts. It hurts a lot. But she can't help it. Someone will say something or do something or she'll see something or hear something or smell something and then all of a sudden she'll be jolted back into the lab. And the only thing that El wants more than to be normal is to never have to think about the lab again.

Even though El is nervous and scared and doesn't really know what to expect, she walks into the building with Hop and Mike. Mainly for Hop and Mike. And for Will and Dustin and Lucas and Max and Steve and Nancy and Jonathan and Mrs. Byers. She wants to do it for them because they're strong and she wants to be strong like them. She doesn't want to be scared anymore. And she trusts Hop and Mike and everyone else. And if they say that talking to this doctor will make her feel better. She wants to try. Wants to try for them.

Once they're inside, Hopper walks up to the front desk and says something quietly to the lady in the soft pink scrubs that's sitting there. The lady looks up at El and smiles gently at her. El looks down at the ground.

"You can do this." Mike whispers in her ear.

You can do this she repeats to herself in her head.

Hopper comes back and gestures for everyone to take a seat. El stares at the wall. Trying to picture what it's going to be like. What the doctor is going to be like. What she's going to have to talk about. She doesn't have much time to think about it too much, because she hears a door open and looks up to see a very, very short woman with very pretty black hair smiling at you.

"El?" She calls out. Her voice is strange. But pretty. Just like the rest of her. El looks over to Hop and he stands up and El and Mike do the same. El walks towards to door and is trying very, very hard not to cry. She doesn't know why she wants to cry all of the sudden. She doesn't know why she wants to cry most of the time. She just does.

The lady is opening the door wide enough for everyone to get through and she's still smiling at you. "Hi, sweetie. My name is Dr. Hart. You and your dad and your uh-?" she says gesturing towards Mike.

"Boyfriend." Mike says, smiling. He always smiles when someone calls him that or when he gets to say that.

"Right. Your boyfriend." She says, smiling at him. "You all can follow me."

El follows even though she feels like she's not really in her body. Like, she's there, but only kind of. Only partly. And the part of her that is in her body is not the part that is making her go forward.

Dr. Hart takes them down a pale yellow hall and round a corner and then down another hallway before they reach the end. At the end is an open door and inside that open door is an office.

This office is nothing like the other doctor's offices that El has been in before. All of the offices in the lab were white (which this one was, too, but a different kind of white), the offices in the lab were too white, so white that it would hurt her eyes to look at them. And even though they were white, they were dark. And they were so quiet. Too quiet. Dr. Hart's office looks nothing like those in the lab.

The walls are a soft white and she has a big window that's open. There's music playing softly in the background. She has green plants everywhere and brown chairs and a brown couch. El thinks it almost looks like home.

Almost.

"Alrighty everyone, y'all can all take a seat." She says, smiling at everyone again.

El notices that Dr. Hart smiles a lot. El wishes that she could smile as much as her. Or just kinda smile in general without it feeling like a task.

"How are you feelin' today, baby?" Dr. Hart asks as she's taking a seat behind her desk.  
El notices that on her desk there's a big bowl full of candy.

"I'm okay." El says, looking down at her shoes.

"Okay is better than not okay." the doctor says.

El looks up at her and Dr. Hart smiles softly at her.

"Okay, so. Dr. Owens has explained the entire situation to me. And let me just say, El, I'm so, so sorry that those Bad Men thought that it was okay to do all of that to you. To hurt you. To keep you locked up. To make you try and hurt other people. I hope all of those smarmy bastards rot."

El and Mike's eyes grow wide and Dr. Hart laughs. "Well, it's the truth."

El sees Hopper nodding his head with just the hint of a smile on his face.

"As I was saying," she continues, "I am so sorry all of that happened to you. And I want you to know that nothing that happened to you was your fault. And you didn't deserve any of it. And it doesn't make you any less of a person just because they treated you like you weren't a person. Do you understand?"

Dr. Hart isn't smiling when she says this. She's looking at El, the doctor's dark eyes staring right at her.

El murmurs "Yes." even though she really, really doesn't understand. And El can tell that Dr. Hart can see right through her, but she nods anyway.

"Okay, so we're not going to get into the heavy stuff today. We may not get to it next week. We'll get to it when you're comfortable, El. I'm not here to push you. I'm here to help you."

El nods without looking at Dr. Hart and she feels so small. So incredibly small. She feels Mike's hand take hers. It makes her feel better. Just a little.

"But what we are going to do today is talk about what you want to get out of all of this. What your goals are. For the sessions and for beyond."

"For beyond?" El asks, looking up, confusion all over her face.

"Yes, ma'am. I'm talking about college. What you want to be when you grow up. Where you want to live and where you want to go and what you want to see."

Hopper speaks up, "Uh, listen Doc. I don't know about that. The kid isn't even in public school yet. She hasn't been to school, ever."

Dr. Hart listens and then nods her head. "Do you want to go to school?" she asks El.

El takes a moment to consider this. Mike and the rest of her friends go to school. Going to school is what every kid does. Every normal kid. And she wants to be a normal kid. But she also knows from the Party that school can be hard. There are tests and homework and other kids who aren't nice. Kids who hurt you. Just because they can. Just like the Bad Men.

But then she thinks about all the fun that Mike and Will and Dustin and Lucas had while making their science fair project. And how much they love A.V. Club. And standing in the gym with Mike and dancing and kissing him.

"Yes. I think so." El says.

"Well, there you go. Goal number one. Get El into school.

Hopper tries to object and Dr. Hart shoots him a look that makes even El nervous.

Dr. Hart turns back to El. "Why do you wanna go to school, darlin'?"

"Um," El says, faltering. Trying not to think about how Mike and Hopper are looking at her. "Because that's what my friends do. And that's what other kids do. And I want to learn like the other kids. Like the normal kids." El can't bring her to make eye contact with anyone in the room, so she's back to looking at the ground.

Dr. Hart takes all of that in and then speaks. "I think those are all very valid reasons. Minus one point."

El looks up at her.

"You said that you wanted to 'be like the normal kids.' And you're already like the normal kids." Dr. Hart says.

"I'm-" El starts to say.

"Nope." Dr. Hart cuts her off. "Do you like to hang out with your friends?"

"Yes?" El says, not understanding where Dr. Hart was going with all of this.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

"Yes?"

"Do you get scared?"

"Yes?"

"Do you get excited?"

"Yes?"

"Everyone feels those things. And lots of kids your age have boyfriends and like to spend time with their friends and get happy and scared and sad. They're all normal. What would make you abnormal is if you didn't feel those things. Hence, you're a perfectly normal kid."

El opens her mouth to argue with her because well, powers and interdimensional monsters and secret government trials.

"Nope." Dr. Hart says again. "I don't want to hear it. You're normal and nothing you can say or do will convince me otherwise."

El is tempted to make that bowl of candy float off of the doctor's desk and right into her lap, just to show her how 'normal' she really is, but she feels like Hop wouldn't appreciate that very much. And that's not what they're there for, anyway.

"What else do you wanna get out of hanging out with me once a week?" Dr. Hart pushes, with a smile on her face.

El takes a moment to consider because she hadn't up until this point. She didn't have any idea what this whole 'therapy' thing was going to be like, so she hadn't done anything to try and prepare. To try and get ready. She doesn't like being unprepared. For anything. She can feel her stomach drop.

Dr. Hart leans forward and looks at El so intently she feels like she can see right into her brain. "Take your time. There is no right or wrong answer."

"I, don't. I. I um. I don't really know." She says, feeling ashamed for not having a good answer.

"Why did you come here in the first place?" Dr. Hart asks.

"Because. Because. Hop is worried about me."

"So am I. And everyone else." Mike says, speaking for the first time since they came inside.

"Why are they worried about you, sweetie?" Dr. Hart asks, not giving up. Not letting El just say one thing.

"I. I. I um. I'm having trouble sleeping. Because of the nightmares. And sometimes I cry a lot and I can't stop. And, um. I. I get this bad feeling in my stomach. And I get shaky. And. And. And." And suddenly, El is crying. And she doesn't really know why. Maybe it was because she hasn't really had a good cry in a few days. And if she doesn't cry at least a little bit every day, it builds up in her, and then little things like a pretty lady who just wants to help you even though you don't think you deserve help makes you cry.

Dr. Hart hands Mike a tissue and he hands it to El. She takes it but just holds it in her hand. Balling it up and smoothing it out, over and over and over.

"Why else?" Dr. Hart asks again, this time in a much more quiet voice. In her quiet pretty voice. And El doesn't want to talk anymore. But then she remembers that she promised Hopper that she would try and then she feels Mike squeezing her hand and she takes a deep breath and tries to continue.

"And. I. Have. I um, I have a hard time focusing." She says, her voice so quiet everyone in the room has to listen really hard to make out the words that she's saying. She's sniffling, but trying not to cry too hard.

"And." She begins again, her voice barely above a whisper. "I. I get sad. Really, really sad. And I hurt."

"Do you hurt yourself, sweets?" Dr. Hart says.

El hears Hop suck in a breath and she feels Mike shift so that he's looking at her.

"Hurt myself?" El asks.

"Do you do anything to make yourself feel bad on purpose? Do you cause yourself pain? Or do you not let yourself have things that you really want?" The doctor clarifies.

"Oh. No. No." El says.

"So what do you mean when you say you hurt?"

El takes a moment to try and make sense of the words that are in her head.

"Like. My heart. It. It hurts." She says, uncertainly.

"Okay. Okay." Dr. Hart says, leaning back into her chair and nodding. "Okay. That brings me back to my first question. What do you hope happens with all of this?"

El turns to look at Mike, who smiles so, so softly at her. And it makes her heart flutter, just a little bit. And then she turns to look at Hop, who is messing with that blue bracelet that he always wears. El knows that he touches it when he gets nervous or upset.

"We're here for you, kid." He says. "We're here to get you what you want and what you need."

"I want," El says. But then stops. She's looking out the window that is behind Dr. Hart and her desk, she's looking like the answer may be out there somewhere, just waiting for her to be able to find it.

"I want." She starts again, and she knows that she can't just say 'I want to be normal' because then Dr. Hart would just fight her on it and she's not in the mood for a fight right now.

"I want." She says, one last time. "I want to be happy."

"Happy." Dr. Hart says, looking at El. "You want to be happy?"

El nods her head.

Dr. Hart smiles at her, but this smile looks sad. "Happiness. Okay. That's something I can work with."


	4. Chapter 4

Steve Harrington cares.

And he is now at a point in his life where he doesn't care if people know that he has feelings or not. If someone would have told Steve "The Hair" Harrington of two years ago that he would be spending his Friday afternoon shopping with his ex-girlfriend, her current boyfriend, and four thirteen-year-olds for another thirteen year old because he wants to get her a gift because he's proud of her for going to therapy, well, he would have laughed in their face and probably told them to "Fuck off."

But alas, present-day Steve Harrington has feelings. And he cares about people. And he likes showing people that he cares about them. Because even though he still has a hard time putting his thoughts into words, he sure as hell knows how to put them into his actions.

So that's why he is currently shopping with the Party (he figured a) they would want to be a part of this and b) they could help him find the perfect present), sans El and Mike, for something to give to El.

Steve is an only child and El is like the little sister that he always wanted, so of course, he's going to do anything and everything in his power to make sure that she feels like she's loved and protected and comfortable. Even if this is something he would have a hard time voicing aloud.

That's why Steve rallied the troops and they all loaded up into Mrs. Wheelers' station wagon to make the twenty-minute drive to the nearest mall, which is where Steve now finds himself wandering around with a gaggle of kids following close behind like ducklings following their mother, trying to figure out the perfect gift that says "Hey, kid. I really admire the strength and courage and bravery you showcase on a daily basis, but going to therapy to take care of yourself instead of literally the entire world for once really takes the cake. I'm proud of you." So far, the search has been fruitless.

He and the rest of the Party go from store to store, looking at stuffed animals and clothes and books and board games. None of them seeming like they would send the right message. One person will hold up something with an eyebrow raised while the other scrunches their face and shakes their head, or shrugs their shoulders in the universal "Maybe, but I'm not so sure" gesture.

They've all decided to take a break for food and are seated around a table in the food court eating cinnamon rolls and french fries, despite Steve pointing out multiple times that it would ruin their appetite and he would not be responsible for Mrs. Wheeler being upset come dinnertime over said ruined appetites.

Steve lets out a sigh as he scans the storefronts, looking for something. Anything.

"Jesus, why is this so difficult?" Dustin asks around a mouth full of cinnamon roll.

"Well, if you wouldn't shoot down literally every single thing one of us sees, it might be a little easier." Lucas responds.

"If you guys would stop picking out the wrong stuff, it might be a little easier." Dustin fires back.

Lucas opens his mouth to say something (probably snarky) back, but before he can Steve interrupts "I swear to God if I have to listen to you two bicker any longer, I'm taking all of you back and I'll just find it by myself."

Steve hears Nancy snicker at this, but no one else says anything.

"Come on guys, we just have to think. What does she like?" Max says.

"Eggos," Will says, without missing a beat, and everyone smiles at that because man oh man does that kid love Eggos.

"T.V. She likes watching T.V." Lucas offers.

"And she likes it when I paint her nails." Max says.

"Oh, oh and Mike. She really likes Mike." Dustin says. Everyone laughs at that.

"Pretty things. She likes things that are pretty." Nancy responds.

"I don't know why she likes Mike, then." Lucas says, still laughing.

Dustin kicks him under the table and then Lucas kicks him back and before it can escalate any further Steve gives them the 'look' and they stop.

"What kind of pretty things?" Jonathan asks, looking at Nancy.

"I dunno. Just, pretty stuff. Like the dress she wore when we first met her."

"Max, what kind of stuff does a thirteen-year-old girl like?" Steve asks, turning to look at her.

"Why the hell should I know?" Max spits back.

"Because you're a thirteen-year-old girl?" Steve questions, eyebrows raised.

"That's debatable." Jonathan says, reaching over to ruffle her hair and Max slaps his hand away, but there's no malice in either gesture.

"Nance?" Steve asks, looking almost desperate at this point. Almost.

She thinks for a moment before saying, "Well Max said she likes to have her nails painted. What if… what if we made up a little care package? Like we put nail polish and a nice comfy blanket and some fancy soap or lotion or something in it…" She says, trailing off.

"She does like being comfy..." Max says.

"And maybe some makeup or something!" Dustin says, excitedly turning to Lucas. "Do you remember how much she liked it when we were trying to make that disguise for her to go to the school?"

"Oh yeah! And when she came back from Chicago to save our asses, when she had all that weird makeup. What did she keep on saying about that?" Lucas asks.

"That it was 'bitchin.' That was the word." Jonathan says, smiling at the memory.

Steve remembers that moment fondly. He was happy to one, see El alive and two, that she looked like the badass that she is.

"Okay," Steve says, "So we get her some stuff to make her comfortable. And maybe you girls can have a slumber party tonight and play spa or something. And we pick her out some makeup. And by 'we' I mean Nancy."

Nancy rolls her eyes, but says "Yeah, that doesn't sound like a bad idea."

"And we can stop at the store and get her some Eggos for dinner and maybe rent a video and have a movie night and the girls can have their spa night or whatever after we leave." Will offers.

El hasn't been eating as many Eggos because Hopper is trying to make sure she eats more 'real food,' but Steve is sure that he wouldn't mind. Especially after today. Whatever is going on at that doctor's office has got to be hard on him, too.

"Now we're getting there." Steve says, feeling relieved that all of this is finally coming together, and feeling grateful that he asked the little shit heads to tag along.

"So I say we all split up. Nancy and Max will cover the makeup and nail polish. Will, Lucas, and Jonathan will pick out a few comfort items, and then Dustin and I will pick out a fun thing. Sound like a plan to everyone?"

They all agree and start collecting the trash from their meal.

"Alright." Steve says, "team break!"

"You gotta stop with the sports stuff, dude." Lucas says while standing.

Steve wants to say something argumentative back, because honestly "team break" isn't really a super sporty thing to say, but he doesn't have the time or the energy to argue with him right now.

The groups go their separate ways with plans to meet out front in forty-five minutes.

"So, what's the fun thing you had in mind?" Dustin asks, walking next to Steve.

"Come on now, I don't wanna ruin the surprise. The suspense. The drama!" he responds.

"You don't have a clue, do you?" Dustin asks with a shit-eating grin on his face.

"Not a one. But we'll find it."

After a solid thirty minutes of searching, Steve is about ready to just grab something arbitrary, call it quits, and hope for the best. But of course, that's when he sees it. Dustin is talking at him about his latest crush while they're walking past a little kiosk and he stops so he can examine it more intently. Dustin is still rambling and walking, not paying attention until Steve grabs him by the back of his hoodie and yanks him back. Before Dustin can protest, Steve points and Dustin says "Awe dude, that's perfect."

"Pretty?" Steve asks.

"Pretty." Dustin confirms.

Fifteen minutes later, the Party and Party plus are standing outside of the mall, gifts tucked securely under arms and in bags waiting to load up into the car.

After a quick stop to pick up the Eggos and other various breakfast supplies, and another slightly longer but still quick stop at the video store where Lucas and Dustin argue about what movie to get and after Steve threatens to make them walk home, they make it back to the Chief's house. They've all start working together to assemble the care package and cook dinner when Steve shows them what he found and feels proud when everyone tells him how perfect the gift is. Of course, it's perfect, Steve Harrington did pick it out, didn't he?

After everything is set out and made, they have to wait a whole five minutes before they hear the Chief roll up. And although Steve has had fun today, he's felt a nervous undercurrent, too. He finds himself saying a silent prayer that everything went okay and that El got something out of it.

Everyone stops talking and all eyes are on the door. It takes about sixty seconds after they hear the cruiser for the door to open and the Party to see Hopper walking in, taking his hat off, looking tired, but not devastated. Steve takes this as a good sign.

"Hey, Hop." Steve greets, "I hope you don't mind, but we all took care of dinner tonight."

"And we got a movie to watch." Lucas says.

"And some other stuff. For El." Max adds.

Hopper looks around and sees the Eggos on the counter and laughs. "Yeah, yeah. That's fine."

Once Hop moves from the door, everyone can see Mike and El, standing there holding hands. El's shoulders are slumped and her eyes are red, but focused. Steve also takes this as a good sign. He knew it would be hard for her, but he's happy to see that she made it through it.

"Hey, El!" Will says.

"Hey, kiddo." Jonathan greets.

The rest of the Party members offer their greetings and she offers a small smile for all of them and says "What are you guys doing here?"

Steve feels his stomach drop. What if El just wanted to come home to some peace and quiet? She's had a hard, long day and probably just wants to go to bed. He feels like an idiot.

"We all wanted to be here for you." Max says, "Incase you wanted to talk or needed anything."

"Yeah." Dustin says. "And we got you some stuff!"

Steve sees El's eyes light up at the idea of presents and he feels better about being there, but also feels a punch in the gut because the whole 'presents' thing is still a pretty new concept to El. The idea of 'getting something for a special occasion' or 'just because gifts' was something El had a hard time wrapping her head around. And it breaks Steve's heart because those monsters that kept her never did a damn thing for her except give her trauma and nightmares and they were dead set on never letting her learn about so many of the good parts about life (like presents).

"Why did you get me something?" She asks.

"It was Steve's idea." Nancy says, "he just asked us to help. And we all wanted to. We wanted to get you something because we're proud of you."

"You are?" El says, looking at Steve.

"Yeah, kid. You did a big thing today. A big thing that lots of adults have a hard time with. We're all proud of you. So we uh, we just got some stuff to make you feel better. Incase what you talked about today was hard."

"Do you wanna talk about anything about today? Like how it went and stuff." Lucas asks hesitantly.

"Um. Not right now. Maybe later, though. I'm just glad you guys are here. Today was. Today was. Um. Hard." She says.

"Okay, then." Steve says, reaching out to ruffle her hair. "No questions. Just Eggos and _Ghostbusters_."

"You got me Eggos?" She says, actually smiling now. "Is that my present?"

Jonathan laughs and says "No. Well, kinda. But it's not the only thing we got you. Do you want to see?"

"Yes please!" She says leading Mike by the hand into the living room and sitting down on the floor where everyone else is.

This is when Hopper leans over and whispers to Steve "You didn't have to do all of this Harrington."

"Oh. I know." Steve replies. "I just knew today was going to be hard on everyone, so I figured I would do what I could to make things easier or whatever. And besides. I'd do anything for that twerp."

"Me and you, both." Hopper replies.

They both watch El excitedly go through the box of presents showing them to Mike who seems just as excited as she is about everything. They both smile when El insists on giving a heartfelt thanks after every single gift. After she's gone through the nail polishes and soaps and after she has draped her new light pink blanket over her shoulders like a cape (which Steve can't help but to think is extremely fitting because that kid is a damn super hero) she walks over to Steve and gives him and hug.

"Thank you for all of this." She says, smiling brightly for the first time in recent memory.

"Awe shucks kid. It wasn't all me. Everyone helped think of ideas and pick stuff out." He responds. "But, I do have one more gift for you, if you think you can handle it."

"I think I can manage." She says, letting go of his waist.

Steve pulls the black box out of his back pocket and hands it to her.

She opens it up and looks like she's going to cry.

"Pretty." She says in a quiet voice.

"Want me to put it on?" Steve asks.

She nods and he lifts the little silver charm bracelet out of the box and claps it on her wrist.

"What did ya get, El?" Mike asks, walking over.

She holds up her wrist for him to examine for himself.

There are eight small letters and two hearts dangling on the bracelet. On one heart is the letter _M _and on the other is the letter _H_. The other letters are _W, L, M, D, N, J, S, _and _B_.

"The letters are for our names, Will, Lucas, Max, Dustin, Nancy, Jonathan, me, and Mrs. Byers. The hearts are for Mike and Hop." Steve explains. "That way," he continues "we'll always be with you. No matter how hard or how scary the situation. All you have to do is look down, and you'll remember."

El doesn't say anything, just wraps her arms around Steve again and gives him another, (this time much more tight) hug.

"Yeah, yeah." Steve says. "It's nothing."

"Alright, come on. Dinner is getting cold." Hopper says, turning away and sounding gruff.

"Awe what's the matter Chief?" Steve says, picking light-heartedly at him.

"Fuck off." He mutters, heading towards to kitchen.

Steve laughs and can hear a muffled El say "Thank you thank you thank you." into his chest.

"Come on, kid." Steve says, feeling a little misty himself. "Let's eat. I'm starving and want to see some ghosts get busted."

El laughs and lets him go, wiping at her eyes.

"Hopper?" Nancy calls from the living room, grinning ear to ear.

"Yeah?" He responds from the kitchen.

"Is it cool if Max and I spend the night? We wanted to have a makeover and spa night. And once the boys leave I figure we could watch _Sixteen Candles_. I rented it from the video store."

Everyone hears Hopper groan from the groan loudly from the kitchen and grumble a "Yes." to which everyone bursts into laughter over.

After the Eggos have been eaten and the ghosts have been busted the male members of the party collect their things and themselves and gamely clear out even though Dustin keeps saying that he would _absolutely love _to spend the rest of the evening getting pampered. El is standing outside saying goodbye to everyone and Mike is holding her hand and whispering something into her ear that's making her smile. Steve watches this with mock impatience when in all actuality he thinks those two are so cute it makes him want to vomit. Mike kisses her forehead and hugs her one last time and then kisses her forehead again and goes in for another hug but Steve calls out "Come on, Wheeler, I'm not getting any younger here." To which Mike responds with an obscene hand gesture that makes Steve chuckle, but after kissing her cheek makes his way over to Steve's car so that he can drive him home.

Dustin and Lucas are arguing about who gets to ride shotgun when El calls out Steve's name and runs over to him to give him what has to be the millionth hug of the evening.

"Thank you thank you thank you." She says over and over again.

"Hey, El. I told you. It's nothing." He says, smiling.

She breaks the hug to look up and him with a big smile on her face and looks like she's going to say something else, but then Nancy tells her to "Get your butt in here or else we're starting the movie without you." and she says "Thank you, Steve. And goodnight!" before running towards the house.

Steve opens the door to his car to get in and it seems that Dustin has won the front seat argument, but Lucas is still bitching about it from the backseat.

As he watches the door to the house close and the porch light go out, he can't help but think _yeah, she's gonna be just fine_ before getting in his car and telling Lucas and Dustin "Shut the hell up. Both of you. Or else you're both going to ride in the back and Mike gets to ride in the front."


	5. Chapter 5

El is no stranger to nightmares.

For the longest time, she didn't know that good dreams existed. Every night that she spent in the lab was just like every day she spent in the lab. She relived and reimagined every terrible thing that happened to her. She had nightmares every single night for as long as she could remember.

But then, Mike found her. And once he brought her in and gave her new clothes and set up a place for her and told her goodnight, she settled down and waited to fall asleep, knowing what was coming. But the next thing she knew, she woke up to Mike giving her something to eat and telling her about the plan.

It had confused her at first. She had never _not_ dreamed before, just countless nights full of dreams about experiments and the Bad Men touching her when and where she didn't want to be touched. But before that night, she had always gone to sleep scared, and this was the very first time in her life when she didn't do that. She was sad, and worried, and anxious, but not scared. Not like she used to be. For the first couple of days she spent with Mike, she slept dreamlessly. For the first time, she wasn't afraid to go to sleep.

And then she even had a couple of good dreams. Dreams about being out of the lab and living with Mike just like he promised and getting to see her friends every day and just getting to be normal.

But the nightmares came back. After Will came back and she was living in the woods, she had nightmares. Nightmares about going back to the lab. About the Bad Men finding her. About the Bad Men taking Mike and the rest of her friends. About the Bad Men making her hurt and kill her friends. She would never wish what happened to her on anyone, let alone the only people that she loved and the only people that loved her. But that's what happened in her nightmares for a while. Everyone she cares about gets treated how she did for twelve years.

And typically she shoulders these nightmares all by herself. She doesn't want to tell anyone about what's going on in her head. The things that happen in there are scary. And she doesn't want to have to tell the people that take care of her and love her that she has to do horrible and terrible things to them every time she closes her eyes.

This night is no different when she wakes up in a panic, heart racing, and a scream just at the tip of her tongue, tears already running down her face. She can hear Hop snoring gently in the living room. She feels like she's about to vomit. She wants so badly to go to him, to wake him up to have him tell her that everything is going to be okay, but she knows how tired he's been. How tired they've both been.

She takes a deep breath just like Dr. Hart told her to do anytime she feels like this. But the panic is still rising and growing in her. She can feel the tendrils of it crawling up her, squeezing the breath out of her. She tries to focus on her breathing because Dr. Hart said that helps. It is not helping. She lets out a quiet sob and hears Hop shift around in the next room, but then resumes snoring.

She reaches over to the radio that she keeps on her nightstand and pulls out the antenna.

"Mike?" She calls out softly.

There's no response.

"Mike?" She calls out again, a little more desperately, she knows that she's on the verge of losing it.

There's still nothing.

"Mike? Mike? Please, Mike. I, I. I need you. Mike?" She's full-on crying now, trying not to scream so she doesn't wake Hop up.

She sets the radio down and pulls her knees up so she can bury her face in them, holding herself tight.

"El?" Mike responds, voice sounding rough, but alarmed. "El, I'm here. El?"

She uncurls herself and responds, "Mike."

"Yeah. I'm here. Are you okay?"

"I. I um. Had. Had a really, really bad dream." She says, trying to keep it together.

"Do you want to talk about it?" He asks, his voice quiet.

"I just. Um. Need you."

"Okay. Gimme twenty minutes."

El sets the radio back down and goes back to curling up, holding herself tight. She's trying desperately to not let the images that she just saw float back up to the surface. She tries to think of happy things instead. Just like Dr. Hart told her.

Mike holding her hand.

Hopper ruffling her hair during breakfast.

Max and Nancy painting her nails.

Dustin smiling at her.

Lucas laughing at a joke she made.

Will smirking at her across the game table when the other boys get into an argument.

Jonathon and Mrs. Byers helping her bake cookies.

Steve buying her that bracelet, which at the memory of she reaches to touch it.

"I'm not alone." She says. "I'm not alone. I'm not alone. I'm not alone." She whispers to herself over and over and over again. But it's hard to make the words have any meaning because she is alone right now. And she's alone with her thoughts and her thoughts are bad and the dream she had was bad and that makes her feel like she's bad.

She's jolted from the spiral when she hears a tap at her window, knowing it couldn't be anyone else other than Mike, she unlocks it and raises it without moving. She hears some rustling, a light _thud_, and then feels the bed dip next to her.

"Hey." Mike whispers, sounding breathless.

She doesn't respond. Just throws her arms around him and starts to sob.

"Hey. Hey. It's okay, El. I'm here. I've got you." He says as he alternates between rubbing her back and running his fingers through her hair. "I'm here. You're safe. I've got you."

It takes El several minutes to calm down while Mike does his best to comfort her.

She sniffles and pulls back from his embrace while rubbing her fingers into her eyes, hard, trying to make herself stop crying. She hates crying all the time. It makes it hard to breathe and makes her head hurt and makes her eyes all red.

Mike looks at her. "Do you want to talk about your dream? It's okay if you don't, but it's okay if you want to. I'm here. Either way."

El takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself.

"Yes." She whispers, "I. I want to talk about it. I need to talk about it."

She thinks back to what Dr. Hart had said about running from her problems. And how it didn't matter how fast and how hard she ran, they were always going to chase her and she would never be able to outrun them.

"Oh. Okay." Mike says, "Just tell me whenever you're ready and tell me whatever you want. No pressure."

El finds his hand on her comforter but doesn't look at him. Instead, she finds a spot on the wall to stare at.

"I was back in the lab. And you were there. Papa, I mean, Dr. Brenner had you tied to a chair. And he had me tied to a table. And he told me to hurt you. And when I didn't he would hurt me. And when He hurt me. You would tell him to stop. And when you told him to stop, he would hurt you. When he hurt you I would tell him to stop. And when I told him to stop, he would hurt me. But, um. But. It was. It. It…" She's crying again.

Mike wraps his arm around her shoulders and she sinks into him. He places a kiss on top of her head. "It's okay. You don't have to tell me all of it." He says, sounding really, really sad. El doesn't want to make Mike sad ever, but she knows that she has to tell him. That he deserves to know. Because Mike tells her about all of his problems. He tells her because he trusts her. And she trusts Mike.

"It was. Um. It was a different kind of hurt. When he hurt me. And when he hurt me in that way and you tried to look away, he made you watch." She finishes in a voice that is very small and very quiet.

Mike doesn't say anything for a couple of beats and it scares El. She's afraid that she's told him too much. That he's not going to want to be her friend and her boyfriend anymore because she has these awful dreams. These awful dreams where awful things happen to him and the rest of her friends.

El finally looks over at Mike and she sees that he's crying, and that makes her feel awful. She never wanted to do that. She never wanted to make him sad or make him cry or make him so sad that he cries.

"I'm sorry." She mutters, looking back down.

"What?" Mike asks, looking astonished. "What the hell could you have to be sorry for? You have absolutely nothing to be sorry for. It's those pieces of shit in that lab that should be sorry. Not you, El. Never you. Thank you. For, um, telling me. I know it's hard for you."

El doesn't say anything. Just sniffles into his shoulder and tries to not think about her dream anymore. This isn't the first time that she's had a dream like this. Not by far. But every time she does, it's a punch in the gut. It hurts to constantly have to live with the weight of what had happened to her.

"El?" Mike whispers.

"Hm?" She responds.

"It's late. Why don't you try and go back to sleep?"

She looks at him, eyes wide and full of panic. She doesn't want to go back to sleep. She sees and hears and feels terrible things when she goes to sleep.

"Hey, I won't leave. I'll be here until you fall asleep. Okay?"

She nods her head solemnly.

Mike stands so that she can get back under the covers and then lays down next to her on top of her comforter and reaching for her hand. She puts her head on his chest.

_He's here_ she thinks. _I'm not alone and this is real because I can hear his heart. I'm not alone. This is real life. Not my dreams. This is. I'm not alone. _

It takes a little bit of time before her brain calms down enough for her to be able to feel like she can fall back asleep. And then a little while longer for her to actually be able to fall asleep.

The last thing that she remembers before finally succumbing to slumber is the sounds of Mike humming something, gentle and sweet.


	6. Chapter 6

Jim Hopper is no stranger to nightmares. He had his fair share of them once he came back from Vietnam. And then again while Sarah was sick. And they just intensified after she died. And then all of that shit happened with Will and the lab and the Upside Down.

He understands when El wakes up in the middle of the night after a nightmare. He understands that she has PTSD, just like he does. And he can see so much of himself in her. The sadness. The anger. The temper. He sees all of this and he knows all of this and he's trying his hardest to make sure that she doesn't turn out anything like him.

That's why he's not mad when he wakes up at 6:30 AM on a Friday morning feeling weary, wondering how the hell both he and El managed to sleep through the night and discovers none other than Mike Wheeler laying next to his daughter (on top of her comforter) curled up and sound asleep. Which explains why he was able to sleep through the night, although it is now apparent that El was not able to.

And then he realizes that what he thought was El crying in his dream, was El crying in real life. He is full of guilt at this. He's tried so damn hard to make himself accessible to her, whenever and wherever she needs him, and she needed him last night and for whatever reason, she felt like she couldn't come to him.

He lights a cigarette and walks to the kitchen to make himself a cup of coffee while not only mulling over his guilt but also what the hell to do with Mike and wondering if he needs to call Karen and if he did call Karen, what would he even say.

He's off of work today, but working tonight because El has a session with Dr. Hart at noon and he doesn't want her to sit alone at home getting in her head about it. Joyce said that El was more than welcome to spend the night with her if Hopper didn't want her to be home alone all night, and based off of this morning's findings, it looks like the kid doesn't need to be left alone right now. Not because he doesn't trust her, she's never given him a reason not to be trusted (well, not including that little trip to Chicago, but what's being a teen without a little rebellion?) but because she has a real hard time being alone.

He hears some stirring coming from El's room, then bedsprings creaking, and then footsteps, "Not so fast, kid." he calls out to whoever is up and moving around. The house is silent. "Kitchen. Now." He says, trying not to sound angry because he's really not, but he knows that he comes across that way more times than not.

Ten seconds later he sees a very sheepish, yet very alarmed Mike standing in his doorway.

"Take a seat." he instructs and Mike follows without hesitation. Hopper knows that he shouldn't be enjoying the look of sheer panic on Mike's face but he is, just a little bit.

Hop takes a sip of his coffee and says "What happened?"

Mike swallows hard and says "El, um. She had a really bad nightmare. And then called for me over the radio and said that she needed me so I just got out of bed and went out my window and biked over here without thinking because she sounded scared and that made me scared and I was just really worried about her and I wanted to make sure that she was okay." he finishes without looking at the other man in the eyes.

Hopper takes another sip of his coffee and takes into consideration what Mike just told him.

"Was she?" He asks.

"What?" Mike responds.

"Was she okay?" Hopper clarifies.

"Oh. Um. No. Not really. She was really upset and then she just started crying really hard when I got here and I asked her if she wanted to talk about it and I wasn't expecting her to because she never wants to talk about it but last night she said that she did want to talk about it, well that she 'had to talk about it' and it's. It's um, really, really bad, Chief. Like the stuff that she dreams about." Mike says quietly, so as not to wake El up, but in a rush to get it all out like he often does and Hop has to listen very carefully to catch everything that Mike is saying.

"What happened in her dream?" Hopper asks, carefully.

Mike looks down at the table for a moment before looking back up at Hop and answering. "I don't want to say. I mean I do, but I think that El should be the one to tell you. It's not really my thing to talk about, you know?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I know." He grumbles, going to take another sip of his coffee.

Neither person says anything for a while, but then Hopper breaks the silence by asking, "Since you said you went out of your window, I'm taking that your mother doesn't know you're here, does she?"

Mike, much to his chagrin, looks down and mutters "No."

Hopper sighs. "That's what I thought. Do you need a ride to your house? To school? I can try and come up with a cover story if you need me to."

"Oh. I should be fine. I can bike back. My parents aren't the most observant if you haven't noticed. And I can always say that I went to Dustin's or Will's to get something I needed for my homework or a project or something."

"Alright, kid. You better get going then." Hopper responds.

Mike scurries up and goes to head towards the front door.

"Hey, Mike?" Hopper calls after him.

"Yeah?" Mike answers, turning back around to face him.

"I won't tell El I know about this if you won't."

"Sounds like a plan to me." Mike says, grinning at him. "See you later, Hop!" he calls over his shoulder as he heads out the door.

"See you later." He mumbles as the door shuts.

Hopper doesn't say anything about nightmares or Mike to El when she finally wakes up a couple of hours later and neither does she. He wants her to feel like she can talk to him like she can talk to Mike, but he also doesn't want to force anything out of her.

"So. Um. How'd you sleep?" He asks her, training to maintain a poker face.

She looks up at him from her bowl of cereal. "Um." She says, looking like she's deliberating if and what she wants to tell him. "Not good." She finally says.

"Not well." Hopper gently corrects with a smile.

She offers a small smile back to him, "Not well." she says.

"Why not?" He asks, trying to make it seem like a casual breakfast conversation.

"Nightmare." She says, looking back down and stirring her spoon in aimless circles in her cereal.

"Do you want to talk about it?" Hopper asks, trying to seem gentle and warm and inviting and dad-like.

She takes a couple of seconds to think before saying "It was bad. And um. I was back in the lab. With Mike. And the Bad Men. And they um. They were hurting us." After saying this she goes back to stirring her cereal.

"I'm sorry, kid." Hopper says, not really knowing what else to say, and not wanting to make her feel pressured to say more than she wants to. "I. I um. I know that having these dreams all the time must be tough. But just know that you're never going back to that lab or any lab or anywhere you don't want to be ever again. I'll keep you safe if it's the very last thing that I do. And I know that your friends will do the same."

El doesn't say anything. Neither does Hopper. She doesn't eat anymore and neither does he.

He finally breaks the silence by saying, "Alright, kid. It's time for you to get ready. We get to see Dr. Hart today."

El gets up from the table and puts her bowl in the sink and then walks to her room silently and Hopper is afraid that he's pushed her too far. And he wonders if that was all she told Mike. Or if she told him about her nightmare in more detail. And if she has this particular kind of nightmare often, where it's not only her that's back in that Godforsaken lab, but her friends, too.

El emerges from her room, dressed in a very ugly sweater that is entirely too big for her that has to be Mike's and she looks nervous. Not as nervous as she did last week for her first session, but still nervous.

"You ready to go?" Hopper asks, grabbing his keys off the table and grabbing for his hat.

"Ready." she says, walking towards the door, with something almost like confidence.


	7. Chapter 7

El still wasn't entirely sure how she felt about Dr. Hart. Well, she liked Dr. Hart as a person, but she still hasn't sure how she felt about therapy as a whole.

She did like the idea of knowing that maybe one day she'd be able to function like a normal human being. She's tired of the nightmares and being scared all the time and being jumpy and the feeling of hands that aren't there and that haven't been there in a long time.

And she is less nervous about going to see Dr. Hart today than she was last week. She knows what to expect now. And El likes knowing what to expect. So come time to walk into that office again, El tries to do so with as much confidence (or false confidence) that she can muster. She just marches right back there and takes a seat on Dr. Hart's couch, trying to make sure that she makes eye contact because that is what normal people do. And Hopper told her that it is also a nice thing to do because it shows people that you're listening to them and that you're paying attention to what they're saying. Everyone always looks El in the eyes, so she needs to look at Dr. Hart that way.

"Hey, darlin'!" Dr. Hart says with enthusiasm once she is seated behind her desk, "How are you today?"

"I'm okay. I'm tired. But okay." El says.

"Why are you tired?" Dr. Hart asks.

"I didn't sleep good, I mean well, last night. And I'm just kind of always tired." El tells her.

"That's what the Chief over here was telling me. What happened last night?"

El really doesn't want to have to talk about her nightmare for the third time, but she knows that she has to, because Dr. Hart is there to help her and maybe if she tells Dr. Hart about this nightmare, she would be able to have fewer nightmares, and having fewer nightmares would be really, really nice.

"I had a nightmare. I have lots of nightmares." El tells her, trying to give more information from the get-go because she knows the doctor will just ask for it anyway.

"So I've been told. And I guess we're just going to jump right into it today. What happened in your nightmare?" Dr. Hart asks in that soft, funny voice of hers.

"Um. I was back at the lab. And Mike was with me." El says, looking over at Hopper who nods at her. The nod tells her that it's okay. And to go on. And that it's okay to go on.

"And Papa. No. Dr. Brenner. Dr. Brenner had Mike tied to a chair and I was tied to a table." El forces herself to say. She's still trying to figure out how much of this dream that she actually wants to talk about, but she's surprised that talking about it again isn't as hard as she thought that it would be, it's still hard. But it's not as hard as it was last night when she told Mike. Or this morning when she told Hopper.

"And what happened next?" Dr. Hart gently probes.

"And Dr. Brenner was telling me to hurt Mike. And I didn't want to hurt Mike. And um, when I didn't, when I wouldn't hurt him, Dr. Brenner would hurt me. And when he hurt me, it. It, um. It made Mike upset." El says, and she's crying again. And she's so so tired of crying over every little thing. It makes her feel weak. And El is tired of feeling weak. She wants to be strong like Hop and her friends.

"When he hurt me, Mike told him to stop." El starts again, in a quiet voice. "But when Mike told him to stop, he would hurt Mike. And hurting Mike hurt me. So I tried to get Dr. Brenner to stop. And when I couldn't get him to stop, he would hurt me. But. Um. It was. It was, um, a, a uh, a different kind of hurt. And it made Mike really, really upset. And he didn't want to watch. But Dr. Brenner made him. And when he tried to not watch Dr. Brenner would hurt me more. And Mike was trying to get out of the chair. And that's when I woke up."

Everyone in the room is silent. El looks over at Hopper, who looks like he's about to cry or punch someone or both.

"Okay, sweetie. Thank you for telling me all of that. For sharing that with me when you didn't have to. For trusting me when you have plenty of reasons to not trust anyone. I'm very proud of you." Dr. Hart says, looking at El with that soft smile that El has a feeling that she's going to be seeing a lot of.

"So what we're going to do now, is try and unpack some of that, if you're okay with that. I just want to remind you that you can tell me as much or as little as you want to. Okay?"

"Okay." El repeats back, wiping at her eyes. Dr. Hart reaches over her desk to hand her a tissue, which El accepts gratefully, using it to wipe at her eyes and cheeks.

"When you started off talking about your dream, you referred to Dr. Brenner as 'Papa,' but then you corrected yourself and called him 'Dr. Brenner.' Why did you do that?" Dr. Hart asks.

"Um." El starts off, trying to figure out how to put her thoughts into words. "Because that's what he made me call him. 'Papa.' He said that's what he was. And I thought he was my papa. Not really, but, he was all I had. So that's what I called him. But. Um, now that I see what real 'papa's' are like, and what they do. Like Hopper. Hop acts like a real 'papa.' He takes care of me and feeds me and makes me feel safe. So I don't want to call Dr. Brenner that anymore. He's not like Hop. He was never a 'papa.' He was a bad man." El finishes, looking at the ground.

She looks up though when she hears Dr. Hart stand up and sees her handing Hop a tissue, too. She sits back down without saying anything while Hopper wipes at his eyes quickly and fixes his gaze out the window.

"You're right about that." She says. "He was never your 'papa,' he was a bad, bad man."

Dr. Hart takes a moment before she speaks again. "Do you have lots of dreams where you're back in the lab?"

"Yes." El answers.

"Why do you think that is?" Dr. Hart responds.

This is one question that El has an answer to without having to think about it too much.

"Because I'm afraid of going back." She tells Dr. Hart.

Dr. Hart takes a moment to consider her answer.

"And you said that Mike was there with you and that Dr. Brenner was hurting him, too? Does that happen a lot? Are you friends in your dreams?"

"Yes." El answers again.

"Why do you think that is?"

This is another question that El doesn't have to think too much about.

"Because I don't want them to have to go through what I did. And, um, I'm afraid that maybe one day they'll have to. Because they know me. And if I ever get caught, they'll take me and my friends back to the lab. Or they'll just kill them. Because no one can know about my powers. I'm dangerous." El finishes.

Dr. Hart looks at her, "You know that you're never, ever going to have to go through again, right? You have a whole army of people who will do anything and everything to help and protect you. And you're not dangerous, darlin'. You're just a little different. There's nothing wrong with being different."

"I thought you said you thought I was normal?" El asks, looking a little miserable.

"I didn't say you weren't normal. I just said that you were different. I'm normal. But I'm different than most folks around here. You can be a normal person, but still be a little different." Dr. Hart says.

"What makes you different?" El asks.

"Well, does my voice sound funny to you?" Dr. Hart asks her. "It's okay if you say it does, most people do."

El nods her head.

"Well, it sounds different to everyone around here because I'm not from here. But where I'm from, the people from Hawkins would sound funny, and I sound normal." Dr. Hart states.

El doesn't say anything, because she doesn't know what to say. She thinks about Max, who had a hard time when she first came to Hawkins, and how she still does have a hard time sometimes. Max has told her that she hated it at first because everyone looked at her and talked about her when she first moved because she was from California and apparently Indiana and California are very different. But Max seems just like Mike and Lucas and Dustin. And so does Will, and Will had a lot of bad and weird stuff happen to him, but he still gets to be normal. Actually, now that El is thinking about it, all of her friends are different from other people. But they all seem normal to her. They're what El wants to be. So maybe she can be different, but still normal. Well, normal one day. Maybe.

"I guess." El says, uncertainly.

"You can be normal. But be different at the same time." Dr. Hart says, smiling at her, but then her smile changes, just a little bit. It gets smaller, or sadder. Or maybe both, El can't tell.

"Let's get back to you. You said that Dr. Brenner hurt you in a 'different way.' What way was that, El?"

El feels her stomach drop. This was the question that she had been dreading. This was the one thing that she had been dreading the most. This was the one thing that kept her up at night the most. The one thing that she had yet to talk about. To tell anyone about. The thing that she still didn't know if she was ready to talk about. She feels like she's about to vomit.

"El?" Dr. Hart asks, her voice almost a whisper.

El squeezes her eyes shut. Trying to block out all the thoughts in her head, the memories of hands on her and the panic and fear and shame and disgust that came with them. She tries to think about Hopper ruffling her hair and that kiss that she and Mike shared in the cafeteria at school.

"El, sweets, I know it's hard. And I know you don't want to talk about it, but I need you to talk to me. So I can help you." Dr. Hart says.

El doesn't know if Dr. Hart can help her with this. She doesn't know if anyone can.

"Kid." She hears Hopper say. He sounds like he's crying. "You can talk about this. You can talk to us."

"Did Dr. Brenner hurt you, not just in your dreams?" Dr. Hart asks her.

El knows that she can't say anything. She knows that she can't make herself say the words. But she also knows that she has to do something. So she nods curtly. Just once.

"Did. Did he touch you? Not just in your dreams?"

Another short nod.

"Did he touch you in places you didn't want to be touched?"

El can't move. She feels like she's going to explode. She feels like she is exploding. Thinking about it. Knowing that there are other people out there that know what happened. Knowing that people are going to know that she's more damaged than they thought. El feels tight all over and all she wants to do is leave. She wants to go home and go lock herself in her room and never come out again and never talk to anyone ever again.

The exploding feeling all over El comes to fruition when Dr. Hart's candy bowl shatters, sending candy flying everywhere. That's when it happens. When El losses it. And she feels so guilty about it. Because she didn't mean to break the bowl, she never means to do anything like that. And when things like that happen, it's a constant reminder that El isn't normal, which just makes her more upset. She's sobbing at she can't breathe and she just wants to be gone. Not at home. Just gone. She wants to be nothing.

She feels someone sit down next to her and wrap their arms around her and she wants to fight them off at first, but then she smells the Hop's cologne and the scent of cigarette smoke, which she typically hates, but not right now, because right now it smells like home and safety and a world where none of this ever happened to her. A world where no one ever experimented on her or touched her or used her. A world where she never had to hurt anyone and where she was never hurt. A world where can be normal.

She just sobs and Hop lets her and she just wants to be gone.

She doesn't know how long she cries. Or when she stops. Or if she stops. She just feels Hop pick her up and put her in the car.

And then they're home and she's on her bed and Hop is on the phone.

And then Mrs. Byers and Mike and Will and Dustin and Lucas and Max and Steve and Jonathan and Nancy are there and Hop is gone.

And then Mike is next to her, holding her hand and not saying anything.

And then, everything is dark.


	8. Chapter 8

Mike was terrified.

And angry.

And felt sick to his stomach.

And about a million other things, none of which were good.

Mike felt all of these things because his very worst fear about El had been confirmed.

Mike remembers the day that Nancy decided to give him "the talk" because she knew that their dad would a) wait until it was too late and b) not mention the important parts. It was shortly after El disappeared when Nancy sat him down and with flaming cheeks for both parties told him about the mechanics of reproduction. She tried her hardest to talk about them in cold, scientific terms, textbook-like and informational. But she also talked about consent (something Nancy had a sinking feeling that their dad would leave out). Mike remembers feeling disgusted when Nancy told him that sometimes people take advantage of other people in the most horrific way.

When giving Mike this talk, Nancy knew that he was still (hopefully) years away from needing any of this information, but she wanted to make sure that he had it. And that he would use it. Not that she pegged Mike to be that kind of person, but she wanted to make it abundantly clear how important it was.

So when he gets a call from Mrs. Byers that he and Nancy need to get to El's house immediately, he's already worried. Well, he was worried all day about her because he had to go to school while El had to go to therapy and he had really wanted to be there for her, but when he tried to fake sick that morning after he slipped back in unnoticed, his mother hadn't bought it and made him go anyway. But then he got that call and he knew that Mrs. Byers was trying to make her voice sound normal, but he could see right through it.

But then he gets there and he sees Hopper pacing back and forth on the back porch, smoking and gesturing wildly, angrily, when talking to Mrs. Byers, he feels like he's been punched in the gut. He makes a beeline for El's room and that's when he sees her. Looking so small and fragile. Just like the night that he found her. She looks like if he breathes on her too hard she'll shatter into a million pieces.

Her eyes are unfocused as tear after tear after tear leaks out.

Mike marches out to the back porch and yanks open the door.

"What the hell happened to her?" Mike says, voice edging towards yelling.

Hopper whips around and points his cigarette at him, "That sadistic son of a bitch Brenner is what happened to her. I want to bring him back to life just to watch him die again. I want to kill him myself this time. With my own two hands."

"Jim…" Mrs. Byers says, looky weary.

"No. No. Don't you 'Jim' me, Joyce, I have every right to be angry. To want to kill that bastard a thousand times over. Look at what he did to my kid!" Hopper says, gesturing in the general direction of El's room. "Look at what he's still doing to her! You didn't see her, Joyce. You didn't see her shatter when that doctor asked what he did to her! I'm going to kill that fucker!"

"Hop, he's already dead." Mrs. Byers says gently.

"Then I'm going to kill him again!" Hopper yells, throwing his hands into the air.

"What. Happened." Mike says again, his insides churning, trying to keep himself grounded even though it feels like he's somersaulting.

"Let's go inside and sit down and talk about all of this, yeah?" Mrs. Byers says, putting an arm around Mike's shoulder, trying to steer him back in the direction of the house.

"NO!" Mike shouts. "I'm not going anywhere until somebody tells me what happened to El!"

"Alright, kid, you wanna know what happened?" Hopper says, getting uncomfortably close to Mike, their chests touching.

Mike swallows.

"That sick piece of shit touched her. Touched her in a way that you're never supposed to touch a kid. Or anyone who doesn't want to be touched that way. But especially not a damn kid ." Hopper tells Mike with a deadly quiet voice.

And then it clicks with Mike. The talk that Nancy had with him several months back. The fear that had lived with him since then. The fear that something like that would happen to someone he loved. And here it is, it happened to the person that he loved the most.

The churning in Mike's stomach picks up speed, and Mike is certain he's going to vomit.

"He hurt her. He violated her. He took everything from her. That's what happened to her." Hopper finished, stepping away and throwing away his cigarette butt while at the same time, reaching into his shirt pocket for another one.

"Hopper…" Mrs. Byers says, in a very sad voice.

"What, Joyce?" he practically spits, "They're not kids anymore. They need to know about this kind of stuff. And I'll be damned if El ever has to mention it again. You didn't see her in there. You didn't see. You didn't. See."

Hopper throws away the cigarette he just lit and heads towards the house.

While Mike and Mrs. Byers are still standing on the back porch, they see him through the windows. He grabs his keys and his hat and starts heading towards the front door, but he hesitates when he passes El's room. He pauses for a moment, rests his head on her door frame, then marches out the front door, slamming it so hard, it makes the windows rattle.

"Sweetie?" Mrs. Byers ventures cautiously.

And it's at that moment that Mike does vomit, over the railing and into the grass. And then he starts crying. No. He's sobbing. He's sobbing for El. Because she's hurting and she's been hurt and she's so damn good and she never deserved a single bad thing that ever happened to her, and she's had every single bad thing happen to her.

He's sobbing because he loves her and she's hurt and hurting and there's nothing he can do to take the hurt away.

He just stands there and sobs. He sobs until it feels like he can't breathe. And then the rest of the Party is out there with him. And he hears Mrs. Byers quietly tell them what Hop had told Mike, only she's more gentle about it. And then the Party is crying, too. Even Steve. They all stand out there, grieving because their friend is hurt and there's nothing any of them can do to fix it. A Party member requires assistance, but there's not a single way anyone of them can assist her.

Mike finally manages to collect himself enough to go into the house.

His mind is racing. Swirling. He wants to do about eight million things at once, and then he doesn't want to do anything at all. He wants to help El. He wants to take away her hurt and take it on for himself. He wants to make her better. He wants to help her like all the times that she helped them and the rest of their friends. He wants to hurt every single person that had anything to do with El's pain. He wants to make them hurt like El is hurting.

But then he realizes that would make him just like the Bad Men.

Hurting someone else because you hurt doesn't make anything better. It never has. It never will.

El has every single reason to be the worst person on the planet, to make others hurt like she has been hurt, and everyone knows that she has the ability to make that happen, but instead. Instead, El is good. She helps. She's kind.

Mike wants to be just like her.

Brave and kind and smart.

He walks into El's room and sits on her bed. She's still crying, and Mike feels a fresh wave of tears coming. He reaches out for her hand, placing it gently on hers, giving her the option to withdraw hers if she doesn't want to be touched right now because Mike knows that sometimes she gets weird about being touched, and now he knows why.

She doesn't move her hand.

"El. El, it's me. I'm here. Okay? I'm here." He whispers through his tears.

El gives his hand the tiniest squeeze.

"I'm here." he whispers again.

Nancy calls their mom and tells her that Mike is spending the night with the Byers and that she's spending the night with Max and El, which technically isn't a lie.

The Party collects various blankets and pillows and sleeping bags and arranges them in the living room.

Mike has yet to leave El's room since he came back into the house.

"Do you think he's going to be okay? Well, do you think she's going to be okay? I mean, do you think they're both going to be okay?" Dustin asks, gesturing with his head towards El's room.

"I'm sure she's going to be okay. And once she's okay, Mike is going to be okay." Mrs. Byers says. "It's just going to take El some time. And we all need to give her that time."

The Party doesn't say anything. It's eerie. Having all those boisterous, full of life kids in one room and that one room is silent.

"What do we do?" Max asks Mrs. Byers, a pleading edge to her voice.

"I don't really know. We just have to do whatever she needs us to do. And if she doesn't know what she needs us to do, then we help her figure it out. But we just have to support her. And show her that we love her."

"We just have to make sure that we don't treat her any differently." Will says, speaking for the first time.

Everyone turns to look at him, eyebrows all around raised.

"I mean," he continues, "when I came back from the Upside Down, all I wanted was to be treated normally. And I love you guys, but a lot of you had a really hard time doing that. And I know for a little while there I wasn't exactly normal, but if you forgot all the Mind Flayer spying stuff, I was still me. And besides, this isn't something new. This didn't just happen to her, we only just found out that it happened to her. So El is going to be the same old El that we all know and love, so now we just have to treat her how we always do."

"You're right." Nancy says. "She's hurting right now, but she won't hurt forever. We just have to help her get through this. I'm gonna go check on Mike."

Mike is still sitting on El's bed, and finally, thankfully, it looks like El has fallen asleep.

Mike is sitting there, looking so vulnerable and so broken and so hurt. And it hurts Nancy to see both of them like that, but at the same time, it touches Nancy in the tender part of her heart to see that her brother shares El's pain.

"Hey, Mike?" She calls out.

He looks up at her with red, but dry, eyes.

"How are you?" She asks.

He scoffs in response.

She should have seen that coming. She makes her way over to the bed so that she can sit down next to him. She doesn't say anything. She doesn't ask any more questions. She knows that there's nothing to say and nothing to ask. She just knows that she needs to be there for Mike like is Mike is there for El. She's there for the both of them. She doesn't make him say anything or try and get anything out of him. She just sits.

And waits.

And after a few minutes, Mike speaks up.

"Why would anyone do anything like that?" His voice is broken and it makes her heart hurt.

"I don't know. I don't know." She whispers back.

Mike doesn't say anything else and Nancy doesn't say anything else.

They just sit there. Together. For each other. For everyone.

They're just there.

They're here.

Waiting.

Here.


	9. Chapter 9

El had only known pain and fear and darkness.

And then, then she knew love and friendship and light.

And then her life was a weird mix of the two, and she has a very, very hard time navigating everything that she felt.

She was happy for the first time ever, but then she felt guilty for being happy. Knowing that she caused so much carnage and chaos for the town of Hawkins and for her friends. But it seemed like her friends didn't care, but she cared. She cared so much. She cared about them and she cared about what she did to them. And what happened because of her. Yet for some reason (well, because they were good a kinda better than her in every single way) they decided to help her like she had tried to help them.

When she wakes up the day after her session with Dr. Hart her head hurts. It typically does hurt the morning after she cries a lot. She tries to block out everything that happened, and she doesn't remember a lot of it from the time that she got home. But she knows that Mike is there and that her friends are there and she needs to say something to them about being dramatic. She needs to apologize.

What happened to her really wasn't that big of a deal. That's what she told herself. That's what Papa told her.

It wasn't a big deal.

The house is quiet. She doesn't know if anyone is up.

She feels strange. Less heavy, but unsure of how to navigate now.

She had never told anyone what had happened to her. She didn't even know that it was something that didn't happen to everyone. She didn't talk about it because it hurt. But then she heard Nancy talking on the phone with one of her friends. And she was upset because her friend was upset. And they were both upset because Nancy's friend's boyfriend had done something to her. And Nancy's friend didn't know how to feel. And Nancy was telling her that what he did was wrong. And that you don't get to touch people like that even if you're dating them. Nancy said that you had to give consent . Nancy sounded angry. Angrier than she had ever seen her.

And El didn't know what that word meant, so she looked it up in the dictionary when she got home later that night.

Consent: give permission for something to happen .

And then she thought about all of the times she had begged for it to stop. For everything to stop.

That's when El found out that what happened to her wasn't normal. But she still didn't tell anyone. She didn't tell anyone because there are already so many things about her that aren't normal. She didn't want to add to that list. So she just tried not to think about it.

El sits up, uncertain of what to do. She feels uneasy. And anxious. And tired.

She doesn't know what time it is or what time she fell asleep or how long she's been asleep for.

Someone knocks on her door, and even though it's a soft and gentle knock, it still makes her jump.

"El?" She hears Mike ask in a whisper, "Can I come in?"

"Yes." El says back in a voice that is so quiet she's not sure if Mike even hears her, but he does because then her door opens wider and she sees him standing there. Looking tired and sad and something else that she can't put her finger on. It makes her stomach pitch reliably.

"Can I sit?" he asks, still whispering.

El nods her head and Mike makes his way over to her bed. She moves so that's she's sitting cross-legged so he can have room to sit. She grabs one of her pillows and brings it to her lap, hugging it slightly.

Mike doesn't say anything. That makes El nervous. Mike always has something to say. Mike always has several things to say. That's one of the things she likes about him. When they first met, he talked to her like he talked to his friends. Not like some sort of science experiment freak. He talked and he talked and he talked and she listened. But now they're both just listening.

El starts trying to think about what to say. How to apologize for breaking down yesterday. How it wasn't okay for her to react like that. That she needs to learn how to control herself better.

"Mike?"

He looks up at her and his eyes are red and puffy and he has dark circles. And makes El want to cry, but she doesn't feel any tears welling up. She thinks that she may have finally used all of them up.

"I'm. I'm sorry. For yesterday." She says in a rush.

He looks at her, confused. And then opens his mouth to say something, but then he shuts it. He takes a moment and then goes to speak again.

"You don't have to be sorry. You have nothing to be sorry for. I'm sorry. That I couldn't help more yesterday. And that you had to go through all of that. And that you're hurting." He says, being slow and measured with his words, something that he usually doesn't do.

"I don't understand." She says. "Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything?"

"Why are you sorry? You didn't do anything, either." he counters.

El thinks about how she does have so much to be sorry for. Because she isn't Mike. And Mike didn't open up the portal to the Upside Down and he wasn't the reason that Will was lost and all those people got killed, like Barb and he wasn't the reason all of her friends lived in constant danger. Mike has absolutely nothing to be sorry for.

And El feels like she has everything to be sorry for. She did all of that. No one else.

"I did everything, though. I'm the reason for every bad thing that's ever happened to you and our friends and their friends. Ever since you found me, bad things have happened to you and everyone else. You should have never found me. You would be better off without me. Everyone would." She finishes.

"That's all bullshit," Mike says without missing a beat. "The Bad Men are the reason that everything happened to Will and Barb and you and everyone else. And besides, life got a lot more exciting once you showed up. That week, when we were looking for Will, was one of the best weeks ever, well not in the moment, but when I think about it again. I got to be the sidekick to a real-life superhero. How awesome is that? And it was like a real campaign. And I never want you to leave. Ever. Because. Well. You know."

"Know what?" El asks, not knowing at all what Mike was talking about. And thinking it strange that Mike would think that she is a superhero when it is so painfully obvious that she is the villain in all of this.

"I um. I ah. Shit." He says, sounding flustered and El has no idea why. "It's um. Well. It's. I wouldn't want you to leave or me not to know you. Um. Because."

"Mike?" El asks, growing more confused by the second.

"I love you." He says, not looking at her.

Hearing this makes her stomach pitch again but in a different way. In a good way. She knew this already. She knew that all of her friends and Hop and Mrs. Byers and Steve and Nancy and Jonathan love her, even though none of them have ever said it. They all jointly have some trouble expressing their emotions. Especially Hop and Mike.

But hearing Mike say it and not just show it. Not just show it by coming over in the middle of the night when she's had a nightmare or by making her Eggos or by hiding her in his basement and giving her a home and friends and a family or by fighting monsters with her. Hearing him say what she had always heard on T.V. it made her feel like less of a monster. Just a little.

"El?" He asks, sounding nervous. And then she realizes that she didn't respond.

She moves so that she can hug Mike, and he hugs her back, hesitantly.

"Is this okay?" he says.

"I love you, too." Is what she says back.

And although that is what she says back, what she really means is this is okay .

Okay .

She thinks about the word. It shines in front of her like a beacon of light, like a lighthouse on a distant coast.

And one day, she thinks, she hopes. One day she'll get there.


	10. Chapter 10

Jim Hopper is a man on a mission.

Everyone on night shift sees that he has "the look," so they all steer clear. Since the lab got shut down, there hasn't been that much going on in Hawkins besides from the usual occasional lawn gnome stealing or jackasses egging houses, and there's definitely nothing going on this evening.

So Jim Hopper sits.

And thinks.

And stews.

And formulates.

He thinks about all the awful things that he would do to that bastard Brenner if he were still alive.

He thinks about where his body might be just so he can shoot him.

But mainly, he just thinks about El. And how to help her. And if he can help her. And what to do about all of this.

When Sarah was first born he was terrified. He was terrified that something like this might happen to his daughter. And now it has. And he wasn't even there to stop it. He didn't even know El so he couldn't have stopped it.

He thinks about what she says the most. That she wants to be normal.

So he thinks about ways to achieve a sense of normalcy for her. He thinks about what she said during that first visit with Dr. Hart.

She wants to go to school.

In order for her to go to school, people would have to know that she existed. In order for that to happen, he would have to tell people about her. He would have to come up with a backstory. If would have to grill it into El. He would have to see if she knew enough to even be able to go to school with the kids her age. He knows that she is smart. But she was also locked up in a lab for the first twelve years of her life and never received any kind of formal education.

This makes Hopper angry all over again. And to be completely honest, he's tired of being angry. It's exhausting. He wants to be happy. He wants to be at peace. And he was there for a while, with Sarah, but when she left so did all of his peace. And he thought that he'd never get it back, but then he got El. And some of the peace came back. But Hopper is tired. And he wants that peace all of the time. He just doesn't know if he deserves it. But he knows that she does. She deserves all of it.

So Hopper thinks. He thinks of ways to be able to bring both of them peace.

School.

She wants to go to school.

The thought of her going to school terrifies him. He knows how mean kids can be and although El has gotten a lot better at controlling her emotions and subsequently her powers, if one kid says the wrong thing to her, it could be all over for them all.

He pulls out his wallet and then gets the card Dr. Hart gave him out of it. She told him that if they ever needed anything at all, to not hesitate to call.

So that's what he does.

"Hello?" she answers on the second ring, her voice sounding groggy.

He looks up at the clock and realizes that it's nearly midnight.

"Uh. Hey. Sorry, doc. I didn't realize how late it was. It's Jim. Jim Hopper." He says, feeling nervous.

"Oh no. It's fine. Is everything okay? Is El okay?" She sounds slightly panicked now.

"Everything is fine. She's, well. No worse than when we left. She was still crying, still not talking when I left. Joyce and the rest of her friends are with her right now. But I was calling, to um, to talk to you about her" He says in a rush.

"It will take her some time to process, but believe it or not, that was a pretty big breakthrough we made. Acknowledging is the first step to being able to talk about something, and then once she feels like she can talk about it, we can discuss ways that she can learn to navigate. To be able to cope better. What did you want to talk about?"

Hopper doesn't think that what happened today was particularly beneficial to El, but he doesn't have a degree and Dr. Hart does. But it still hurts him to know that she's hurting. At least now he can hope that she'll get better.

"You know how she said that she wanted to be able to go to school?"

"Yes." Dr. Hart says.

"How, would, I, uh, we. How would we be able to do something like that? Make that happen?" Hopper asks, uncertainly.

"Well." Dr. Hart starts off. "We would have to make sure that she was emotionally ready, and then academically ready. She's never had any type of formal schooling, correct?"

"No. She hasn't. When I had her in that cabin, I tried to teach her some stuff. But it was mainly words. That kid had the vocabulary of a five-year-old. But she picks up quick. She's real smart, doc. But I never did anything with math or science or history. It was all English."

"Hmmmm." Is all that Dr. Hart responds with. She's silent for a couple of moments before speaking again.

"You would have to find someone to be able to teach her to get her to her benchmarks. And I'd like to speak with her, make sure that feels like she's emotionally ready for school. That she has the tools in her toolbox to feel like she can cope with whatever it throws her way." Dr. Hart says.

"Speaking of coping," Hop says, "I'm really sorry about your office, doc." He thinks back to the papers flying off her desk and the candy bowl shattering, sending candy everywhere.

Dr. Hart chuckles. "You have nothing to be sorry for. All in a day's work. She didn't hurt herself or anyone else. She was expressing her emotions and that's what happens in my office every day, she's not the first one to make a little bit of a mess, given the first one to make it in that way, but I'm sure she won't be the last."

Hopper doesn't say anything because he doesn't know what to say, but before he can think of anything Dr. Hart speaks again.

"I can come into my office tomorrow and we can all sit down and talk if you would like to hit the ground running with all of this."

"Yeah. Yeah, I'll see how she is when I get home and then I'll call you and let you know."

"Sounds perfect. See y'all tomorrow then. Hopefully."

"Hopefully." Hopper repeats as he hangs up the phone.

He goes back to thinking.

He 'has' a distant cousin. A second cousin. No. A third. He has, no, had a third cousin who died. In a car accident. And they were close as kids. And she didn't have any other family. And lived in Chicago. Chicago would be good. El's been there before. He had a third cousin who lived in Chicago who died in a car accident. He was and is the only one who could take El in. So he did. But before that, she spent some time in the system. While they were looking for him. That would help explain some of El's quirks. That's it. That's the story. No one needs to know anything else. And he won't tell anyone unless they ask.

He spends the rest of the night going over the story and exploring different scenarios in his head. He tries not to think about what happened to her. Just what is going to happen. He's going to give her a normal life. And in order to do that, he has to treat her normally.

Her name is Jane Hopper. Her middle name is Eleanor. But she goes by El. That's what he'll tell people. Her birthday is on November 6th, 1971. Her mother's name was Lydia. She doesn't know who her father is. That should be enough, no, it will have to be enough to satisfy the curious minds of the town folks of Hawkins. She's been through enough and they don't deserve to know anything else about her. They don't need to know anything else about her.

Once his shift is over, Hop is eager to get home. Eager and nervous and worried. He doesn't know how El is going to be. He finds himself hoping and praying to anyone who will listen that he finds her better than he left her. He feels exhausted and oddly energized at the same time.

When he walks in, everyone is still asleep and the house is quiet. El's door is open and as he gets closer, he can hear quiet, unintelligible voices coming from her room. A cursory glance around his living shows that Max, Dustin, Will, Lucas, Steve, Nancy, and Jonathan are all asleep. He knows that Joyce is probably asleep in the guest room. That means that Mike is the only one up and that he is the one talking to El. He should have figured as much.

He navigates the house as quietly as he can trying not to wake anyone up, making his way El's room. The closer he gets, the more he can make out their conversation.

"... and then mom started yelling at my dad. So I just got up and left. They didn't even say anything to me. I just went into my room and waited until they either noticed that I was gone or they stopped arguing. But they didn't notice and they didn't stop arguing and I just sat in my room and…" He hears Mike saying. He takes Mike's rambling as a good sign.

"El?" He calls out quietly, trying not to frighten her.

"Hop?" She calls out, her voice sounds rough.

Pain hits him right in the gut.

"Yeah, it's me. Can I come in?" He asks.

The door creaks open slowly in answer revealing El and Mike sitting close together.

"Hey, kid." He calls out, softly. He decides against asking her how she's feeling. He could probably take a guess about how he was feeling.

"Hi." She says back, smiling ever so gently at him.

He takes this as another good sign. He feels a wave of relief wash over him. She's not as broken as she was yesterday. She still seems small and sad, but different. He shoulders aren't as hunched. Her eyes are a little brighter.

"I got something to tell you. Do you wanna wake everyone else up?" He asks.

Both Mike and El look concerned.

"Hey, it's uh. It's nothing bad. I promise. Okay?" He clarifies. "I'm gonna wake everyone up."

Hopper makes his rounds and he's greeted by a plethora of complaints. It would seem like no one really got any sleep last night.

Once everyone is up and seated and he has a cup of coffee in his hand he clears his throat and everyone looks at him.

An intense wave of deja vu hits him as he thinks about the last time she had all of her friends gathered around her like this. He clears his throat and opens his mouth to speak.

"So, uh, kid." He says, turning to look at El who is sandwiched between Dustin and Mike on the couch, pink blanket wrapped securely around her.

"The first time we went to go see Dr. hart you had said something about wanting to go to school. So last night I called Dr. hart and asked her what we would need to do to make that happen. And she told me that we would need to make sure you were where you're supposed to be education-wise, and that she felt like you were emotionally ready for it. She said that she could come into her office today if you wanted to meet with her and talk about it. You don't have to if you don't want to, though." Hopper finishes.

El looks at him, eyes wide with dare he say, excitement.

"I can go to school?" She asks.

"Maybe. We gotta make sure that you're ready, but if you are, and you want to go, I think it's time to let you."

"If. If I see Dr. Hart today, do we only talk about school?" She asks, sounding timid.

"Yeah. Of course. We only talk about what you want to talk about."

"What would you tell people? About me? You said, you said before that people can't know about me." She says, looking down.

"Well, Your name is Jane Eleanor Hopper, but everyone calls you El. You're the daughter of my third cousin, Lydia. Your birthday is November 6th, 1971. You're from Chicago. She died in a car accident and I'm the only family you have left. You bounced around in the system for a bit before they were able to find me. If you think you can remember all of that, and if you're okay with all of that, that's what we'll tell people. You've been hidden away too long. It's time for you to go out. If you're ready."

"Wait." Dustin says, "You're actually going to let El out into the real world? Jesus, I never thought the day would come." He's smiling, so Hop knows there's no malice to his words.

"Would you shut up?" Lucas says, accusatively, then turns to Hop. "If El needs help, getting ready for school and stuff, I can help. I'm really good at history. Like, insanely good."

"And I can help her with math!" Will says.

"Me, too!" Dustin says.

"And I can help you with science." Mike says quietly, looking at El as he speaks.

"Oh yeah. We can all help with that." Lucas says.

"And I can help with English." Max offers.

All the boys turn to look at her?

"What?" She says, defensively crossing her arms across her chest. "I'm like reading and I'm good at grammar. Fight me."

Hopper chuckles over this.

"And I can help with whatever these dweebs can't." Nancy says, looking at El.

El takes a moment before she speaks, taking everything in. "You'll let me go to school?"

"If that's what you want, and Dr. hart thinks you're ready. Then yeah, you can go to school." Hopper tells her.

She doesn't say anything. She just gets up, the blanket still wrapped around her shoulders and makes her way over to Hop. She wraps her arms around him.

"Thank you." She whispers.

Hopper finds himself holding back tears. "Yeah, yeah. Let me go call the doc. Let her know we're coming."

He gets up and makes his way to the phone.

"Hop?" She calls after him.

"Hmmm?" He calls over his shoulder.

"Is, is it okay if everyone comes with me today?" She asks.

He stops and turns around.

"Everyone?" He asks, uncertainly, looking at all eight guests.

"Yes…" She says shyly.

"Yeah. Kid, that's ah. That's fine."

She smiles at him.

"Whatever. Just go, uh, go get ready. All of you. I want to get her there soon."

Twenty minutes and one phone call later, Hop finds himself leading a small fleet to Dr. Hart's office, hoping a praying the whole way that things will go better than last time.

They all pull up into the empty parking lot and exact their respective vehicles. He turns to El.

"Ready?" He asks.

"Ready." She affirms, shoulders back and head held high as she marches her way towards the front door.


	11. Chapter 11

El feels different.

She always feels different, but this is a different kind of different.

She feels lighter, maybe. She feels less heavy. She feels like she has nothing left to hide. She maybe even feels a little light inside of her. She feels like the world isn't as dark as it was yesterday. She feels something that feels like hope but that she would never call hope.

She arrives at Dr. Hart's office with all of her friends in tow. A small army there for her. To protect her. To guide and shelter her. She doesn't want to feel hope because she is afraid of having it taken away from her, but no matter how hard she tries to keep it pushed down, the feeling just keeps on bubbling back up.

She's nervous. She knows that everyone is, too. But she keeps on feeling Mike's hand holding hers, squeezing it every so often to let her know that he's there.

She tries to muster up the confidence needed to go in. She wants to go to school and she wants to do whatever it takes to go to school, but at the same time, she's scared. She's scared to see Dr. Hart after what happened yesterday. She's scared that Dr. Hart is going to want to make her talk about what happened yesterday. About what she said yesterday. About what happened to her. She's scared that Dr. Hart is going to tell her that she isn't ready to go to school. That she isn't normal enough to go to school. To go out into the real world. She's just scared.

Her mind is racing with these thoughts and about a million more when she goes into Dr. Hart's office. It's a bit crowded in there, Nancy and Mike are sitting with her on the couch with Max and Steve sitting on the arms, and Lucas, Dustin, and Will sitting on the floor in front of her. Hop, Jonathan, and Mrs. Byers are sitting on the other couch in Dr. Hart's office.

"Well hello and good morning, everyone." Dr. Hart says smiling and taking a good look at everyone.

Everyone murmurs greetings back and El looks down at her shoe and closes her eyes, trying to organize her thoughts and her emotions. Trying to prepare herself for whatever is about to happen.

"So, El." Dr. Hart says, "Hopper tells me that he thinks it's time for you to go to school."

El squeezes her eyes and looks up at Dr. Hart, trying her best to maintain eye-contact.

"Yes." El says. "I, uh, I want to go to school."

"I know that you want to, but do you think that you're ready to go to school?" Dr. Hart asks.

El takes a deep breath and feels Mike squeeze her hand, reminding and reassuring her.

"I don't know." She says, looking down at the ground again. She opens her mouth to try and further explain because she knows that Dr. Hart is just going to ask her more questions anyway.

"I, I want to. I want to because that's where my friends are and that's what all the normal kids do, or what everyone else does," she says, correcting herself before Dr. Hart has a chance to. "But I'm scared." She admits. She feels like she can tell all of this to Dr. Hart and her friends because as of last night, they all now know the worst thing about her, and she feels safe with all of them there. Like she can talk about it. Like she can talk about this. She doesn't know if she's ready to talk about the past right now, but she thinks that she's ready to talk about the future. They make her feel strong. Strong enough to do this.

"I'm scared because I know that some of the other kids can be mean," she thinks back to the bullies that bothered Will and Mike and Lucas and Dustin when she first met them. "And I'm scared that all the kids will think that I'm weird. And I'm scared that something will happen and they'll find out who I really am and I'll have to leave Hawkins forever. And I don't want to leave." she has to look down after saying all that because she knows that if she keeps on looking at Dr. Hart that she's going to cry and she is so tired of crying.

Dr. Hart doesn't say anything at first, but she does lean forward a little bit.

"I think that those are all very valid fears, but I also want to let you know that I think that we can get you to school. I don't know when that will be, but I want to let you know that I do think it is something that you can accomplish." She says.

"What do we need to do?" Steve asks, "Like, to get her there?"

Dr. Hart looks at him with a warm smile and says, "Well. First, we need to make sure that she is emotionally ready. As I'm sure y'all all know, school can be tough and El has some additional challenges on top of that. But that's not to say that she can't do it. I think it's great that she has such an amazing support system in all of y'all, so that is definitely going to help. But I also want to make sure that El would be able to control her strong emotions. It is okay for her to feel stress over an assignment or sad because some kid said something mean, but for her, if it gets too strong, we all know what could happen."

El looks up at Dr. Hart again, "What would I need to do to make sure I can control my, uh, emotions?" she says, knowing that it was more than her emotions that she needed to worry about controlling.

Dr. Hart takes a moment to think before answering, "You've already taken the first steps for that, sweetheart. You've started by coming here, by talking to me. It is important that you keep on talking. It doesn't always have to be with me, but you cannot keep all of your bad feelings and your thoughts to yourself anymore. You have been through so much, but you can only hold so much. When these thoughts and these feelings are left unsaid when they are left inside, they build up and they build up and they build up until you don't have any room left, so you have no choice but to explode. And that is somewhat normal, lots of people get to that point, but not everyone can do what you can do." She says with a soft smile.

It's Hop that speaks this time.

"So what can we do to make sure she doesn't get to that point? What can we do to help her?"

Dr. Hart takes a moment and says, "Well, first and foremost. You just need to listen to her. You all also have to realize that you're not always going to have all of the answers. And you have to be okay with that. El has been through some pretty heavy stuff, some stuff that y'all have never nor will ever have to experience. You have to realize that her emotions are not problems that need to be solved. It's okay to not have an answer or a response when she tells you something, but you need to make sure that you're listening. And El," she says, refocusing her attention, "You're not always going to know what to say or how to say it. But that's okay. We're going to get you there. But what I want you to know first and foremost is that you're not some problem that needs to be fixed. You're not some small, broken thing. You've had some terrible, awful, inhumane things happen to you, but none of those things make you any less of a human. Any less valuable. It doesn't make you any less than anyone else in this room. We all have our crosses to bear. Do you understand me?"

El nods and looks around the room. She looks at each and every person there. They are all there because she loves them, and for some reason, they have all decided to love her back.

Nancy is the next to speak, "So once you're confident that she can handle her emotions, what needs to happen? How can we help her?"

"Well, I've been told and I can tell that El is very bright, but she isn't where she should be academically. In order for her to go to school, she would need all of her benchmarks to meet that of someone in the eighth grade, and not that I don't think that she would be able to do it, but I think it would be wise to get her up to that point and then enroll her in school for next year."

El feels crushed instantly. That would be months away. She knew that she wouldn't be riding to school on Mike's bike tomorrow, but she didn't think that it would take months.

"But, I want to go. I can do it." El states in a quiet voice.

"I know that you can, sweetheart." Dr. Hart answers, "but first you have to let me get you ready. You have to let me give you the words and the names to what you're feeling. To give you the tools that you need to process and handle those feelings. And I don't want to throw you into school in the middle of the semester. It'll just make it harder on you."

El opens her mouth to protest, but Max speaks up first.

"She's right, El. I did the whole 'being new once the school year had already started thing' and it sucked majorly. I think it would be better if you waited until next year. It would give you more time to get ready. To be more prepared."

El looks down at her feet. Mike leans over and half whispers to her, "I know it's not what you wanted, but it's a start. And you're not going to be locked up the whole time. Right?" he says, looking up at the Chief for the last part.

"Right," he reaffirms. "No more hiding. I promised you that."

"And it'll be good because by the time that you get to school, people will already know about you and you won't be some shiny new thing. And you'll have all of us already and we can be there for you, whenever you need us. But until then we can all help you get to where you need to be and we can hang out and go to the movies and go to the arcade and do fun, normal stuff." Mike says.

El feels like crying, this was something that she wants so badly, but she knows that they're all right. She knows that it's going to take a little while to get her to where she can be around other people.

"Yeah. I guess." She says, scuffing her foot against the floor.

"I know this isn't what you want to hear." Dr. Hart says, "but this is what's going to be best for you. And you're going to have so many people that make sure that you get there. I mean, just look around right now. Look at all of these people who are here because they love and want to help you."

El looks around the room again, taking in everyone's hopeful smiles.

"Okay." El says, looking back down at the ground.

"Okay?" Dr. Hart asks, looking at Hopper.

"Okay." He confirms.

El feels that little thing flutter in her chest again.

That little light.

She allows herself to feel it this time.

To acknowledge it.

Walking out of Dr. Hart's office, El feels different. She feels something that she hasn't felt in a long time. She feels something that she only just recently has learned the name of.

She feels hope.


	12. Chapter 12

El seems different now. Not in a bad way, not in a way in which it seems like she's really changed. But she just seems different.

Mike notices that she smiles a little more now. Cries a little less. And with each visit to Dr. Hart, she seems to come out a little lighter. Her eyes seem lighter. Or whatever emotion that her eyes display seems better. She seems better.

Mike was worried when Dr. Hart told her that she didn't want El to go to school as soon as El had hoped. He was worried that it would make her spiral. That it would send her into some sort of deep dark place. Mike knows how many times that El has been let down, how many times she's been disappointed. So he was pleasantly surprised to see that she handled the news pretty well.

And now El seems different. The dark bags circles that had taken up residence on her face are fading. She's been calling him less in the middle of the night. She's talking more. Little by little she is revealing her past life to him and to everyone else. Of course, sometimes she still cries and sometimes she still calls him in the middle of the night and sometimes she still doesn't want to talk about whatever it is that's bothering her. But she's better. She's doing better.

It makes Mike's heart flutter. It makes him hopeful. It makes all of the shit that he is going through at home with his mom and his dad so much more tolerable. He finds that it is easier to ignore their bickering and their fighting and his dad's overall disappointment in him. He has El. And El is getting better. That's all that matters to him right now.

The next couple of months pass in a blur.

When the Party said that they were going to help El get ready for school, they really meant it. Every spare moment everyone had was devoted to helping El.

Mike, Lucas, Will, and Dustin would rush home the second that school was over so they could get home and get their work done and then Nancy or Steve or Jonathan would take all of them over to the cabin and they would sit with El for a couple of hours and teach her everything they could.

It wasn't as easy as Mike thought it was going to be at first. El was smart and everyone knew it, but they had to start with kindergarten stuff pretty much and work their way up. El kind of knew how to read and write, but she didn't know anything about grammar. Max and Nancy worked with her a lot on that. They taught her grammar and spelling and vocabulary words and just about anything else that you could that had to do with English.

Mike was (although he would never say it to her because he knew that she would kill him) pretty surprised at just how good at English that Max was.

El picked up on English the best. She soaked up everything like a sponge. She devoured any book that they put in front of her.

She picked up on history pretty well, too. She just loved learning about the past. She told Mike one time the reason that she liked it so much was because so much of her past was a mystery and if she couldn't piece together all of the puzzle pieces there, at least she could do it somewhere.

She struggled a lot with math and science. Something about numbers were just hard to wrap her head around. When she came out of the lab she at least had a basic understanding of words. Well, she knew some. And she could communicate. It was kind of like talking to Holly, but regardless she had some sort of foundations. When it came to math, she had absolutely nothing except for the number eleven. And then later she had the ability to read the time off of an analog clock. But other than that, numbers might as well have been a foreign language to her.

And she wasn't a big fan of science because she said that it made her think of the lab. Which made total sense. She grew up being a science experiment. Oftentimes Mike's science lessons ended with El sighing heavily and putting her head down on the table and stating "No more."

Despite this, she tried. She tried and tired and tried so hard. She also got frustrated a lot, too. And Mike and the rest of the Party quickly found out that she was very impatient. She just wanted to be able to get it. To understand it. She was, of course, willing to work for it. But Mike knew that it upset her that it didn't come as naturally to her as reading did. And he knew that she had an additional block to work around when it came to science. Once, when he was telling her about scientific methods and different kinds of research and experiments, her entire face went blank and she went to whatever place in her mind that she goes to when she feels overwhelmed or sad or when she thinks about the past too much. He quickly decided to call it quits and just sat there with her. Waiting to see if she would want to talk about whatever was on her mind. She just stared blankly until Hopper came home and Mike explained what had happened. Hopper put her to bed and went out to smoke and to call Dr. Hart.

But nevertheless, she persisted. She tried so damn hard to work past whatever it was that she had to work past. Whether it was a hard math problem or a hard emotion, she soldiered on the best that she could. Mike knew that when she was alone at the cabin, that when Hopper was at work and Mrs. Byers wasn't able to sit with her, she worked through workbooks and readers and spent just about every waking moment she had devoted to catching up on roughly seven years of learning.

And Mike was proud of her, don't get him wrong. He was proud of her for working so hard to get to school and proud of her for working so hard with Dr. Hart and just constantly trying her hardest, but he was tired. Even on the weekends El insisted on trying to learn _something_. And as much as he loved watching her learn and grow and as much as he loved being a part of that process he was tired. He needed a break from the 24/7 school work. And he thought the El and the rest of the Party needed a break, too.

Hopper had promised that he would let El go out into the real world, but she was so focused on school and learning that it hadn't actually happened yet. So one night when Nancy came to get him after spending about three hours explaining the basics of biology to El, he decided to talk to his sister.

Even after everything that they had been through, Mike still had kind of a hard time talking to Nancy.

They were riding together in silence when Mike cleared his throat and said "Hey, um, Nance?"

She glanced over at him briefly before returning her eyes to the road.

"Yeah?" She answered, almost sounding suspicious and maybe sounding worried.

"So you know how hard El has been working to learn everything that she needs to so that she can go to school? Like day in day out? Like how she lives, breathes, and eats schoolwork right now?"

Nancy chuckled and responded, "Yes, I am aware."

Mike laughed a little too because it was kind of a stupid question to ask her. Nancy had been helping El just as much as everyone else had, and then some.

"Well," he says, "I was just thinking that it might be nice if we did something for her. Like what Steve and you guys did when she went to therapy for the first time. Only bigger. And better."

"What did you have in mind?" She asks, glancing at him again out of the corner of her eye.

"Well," he begins again, "you know how Hopper said that he would like, let her out into the real world and stuff now? So that when she goes to school in the fall it won't be some big scandal because people will already know who she is and so that she can actually do stuff like go to the movies and to the arcade with us?"

"Yes?" She questions, not really being able to see exactly where Mike was going with this.

"I was thinking that maybe to like, reward her, and for all of us and especially her for everything that she's been doing that we have like, an adventure." Mike says tentatively.

"An adventure?" Nancy questions.

"Yeah!" he responds enthusiastically. "We could all take her somewhere like to the zoo or the aquarium or to the lake or something and we could just make a whole day out of it! She's never gotten to do anything like that before and we could even turn it into like some sort of lesson!"

"Like a field trip?" Nancy asks, laughing a little.

This amps Mike up even more. "Yeah! Like a field trip! An awesome, adventurous field trip where El gets to go out in public and do fun things and have fun with the rest of us. Just like everyone else gets to!" He's grinning when he finishes.

"Have you talked about any of this with Hopper?" Nancy asks, "Have you made an actual plan? You know with Hopper that you're going to have to have every single little detail planned out to get him to agree to it. I'm sure when he said that he would let El get out he was thinking of her first outing being something like going to the movies or to the arcade or even shopping, I don't know how up he would be for an 'adventure.'"

Mike mulls this over as they pull into their driveway.

"I know!" He says, and Nancy can practically see the light bulb go off in his head.

Mike then goes into great detail about his grand plan. Nancy listens to him intently and has to make a few alterations to some of his more extravagant ideas here and there, but between the two of them, they've worked out a pretty solid, fun idea.

"That sounds really great and all, Mike, but you're still forgetting one thing. Hopper. You've got to convince him into letting all of this happen.

"Actually," Mike says with a grin on his face that Nancy doesn't exactly trust, "I don't."

"And why don't you?" She retorts.

"Because you're going to!" He states, grin even bigger.

"Me? I have to? Why the hell do I have to?" She says, looking offended but honestly feeling a little scared at the idea of asking the chief to whisk his daughter away on this grand plan of Mike's.

"Because he likes you and it'll sound better coming from you. You are the responsible young adult, after all."

Nancy tries to come up with some sort of argument but realizes that it probably wouldn't be worth it. Once Mike sets his mind on something, there is no changing it.

"Fine." She says, giving Mike the side-eye, "but you have to do all the planning and all the coordinating."

"Yes!" Mike says, literally pumping his fist in the air. He opens up the car door and literally runs to the front door.

"Why are you so excited to get inside?" She asks, walking up behind him.

"Because," he says, "I have to let everyone else know. And I have some planning to do."

With that, he yanks upon the front door, yells a greeting to his mother, and then rushes upstairs.

"What's that all about?" Their mother asks, turning to look at Nancy.

Nancy smiles up the stairs in Mike's general direction.

"He's got some planning to do."


End file.
